Well, if you had asked me yesterday if I was ready to have this baby, without hesitation, I would have said yes.
But then life happened. And I got sad, and I decided that I’m not ready.
My kids absolutely LOVE Halloween. They are obsessed with it, and they have so much fun with it every year. It’s basically a year long holiday and we don’t have an “off” season from Halloween. It’s just constant. So, they keep me busy, and I’ve managed to put something out of my head that I should have seen coming.
Last year, my 8 year old birth son and his older brother held a huge costume drive for their neighborhood where they collected hundreds (or more) costumes and donated them to kids who didn’t have any. They made the news, and it was actually a very big deal.
That news segment was the first, and only, time I’ve heard my sons voice, or seen him in anything other than a picture in his entire life.
It broke me, it set me back really far, and honestly, it just fucking hurt.
This year, they did the same thing. They will be holding their costume drive next week, and yesterday morning, he had a 5 minute long segment on a major news network about it.
I haven’t watched it yet. I can’t. I know what it will do to me, and I’m just not ready to go there yet.
I’m not ready to be broken in this big and huge way that seeing him in a video will do to me.
I’m not ready to open myself up to that level of hurt and grief and pain and all of the horrible feelings that come with it.
And I’m not ready to give birth to one son while so deeply missing another.
Without even having watched it, just knowing that it’s out there, that it exists, has taken the wind out of my sails. I just feel completely broken and defeated and depressed. I don’t want to exist, and I don’t want to hurt.
There’s just something different about seeing him in a video. Hearing his voice, seeing how he moves, his personality…when all I’ve ever had is pictures over the course of his entire lifetime…it’s just an entirely different level of hurt that I can’t explain.
Last year when I was in the same position, I couldn’t watch it either. It took me a few days to be okay enough to watch it. And even then, I didn’t really watch it. We were in therapy, and she played it, and I just kind of…listened and glanced. And I think probably that day was one of the closest I’ve come to crying in therapy.
So, no. I’m not ready. For any of it.
I’m not ready to watch the video, I’m not ready to have this baby, and I’m not ready to spiral into what I know I’ll spiral into after watching it.
I’m trying to be strong enough to stay sober after he is born.
And I’ve just been handed the biggest fucking trigger that I have on a silver platter.
Thank you again, universe. You sure do know how to challenge me.
(On a side note, I really thought i was in labor this morning. Contractions between 3-5 minutes apart between 2am and 4am, but then they slowed down again. What the hell. And still having that bleeding. Make up your mind, child!)