I've never paid so much attention to how I am feeling on a day-to-day basis. Since my daughter died, every day has been based around how I am feeling, how I am coping, whether I'm feeling social, or happy, or extra sad. It is so strange to focus so much on my emotions. At the beginning, I couldn't help it, my emotions and grief took over no matter how I wanted to be feeling or not.
Now I'm just resigned. My baby died. I have to live with that every day of my life. I have to LIVE in spite of that. It's never going to go away, I'm never going to forget about it. I might have another baby, I might not. I am continually humbled and learning humility is not easy. I still have all of these expectations of things my life should and could give me. Who told me my life was going to be easy? NO ONE! But I just learned that it was, along the way. Pretty much every thing in my life that I wanted, I achieved. If I worked hard enough or long enough, life handed me everything I dreamed up---college, grad school, study abroad, husband, a life filled with nice things, good friends, love. If I was unhappy it was because I wasn't trying hard enough.
But now, I've had to open my eyes and see that life doesn't have to give me what I want. I might try and try and do everything possible and Kayla might have been my only child. It makes me sad to think like that, but it's true. It's humbling. I have to learn that lesson over and over again. I KNOW more than most people that nothing in life is guaranteed, not my life or my husband's or our marriage or our stability. But it is so hard to break learned habits, that sometimes I still find myself angry at life, because it's not going the way I EXPECTED it to.
Even though I had a beautiful weekend with my family in town, I was just sad. And thinking of how I wanted my life to be right now, and that it's never going to be like that. I try not to think things like "Kayla WOULD have been almost 6 months old, " or "We SHOULD be waking up every few hours at night to nurse." Because I know that the would-haves and the should-haves were not the supposed-to-be's. I accept that Kayla had a purpose and her purpose was not to live on this earth with me, so I don't like to say that she should be here. But the want, me wanting to have a 6 month old baby and me wanting to wake up in the middle of the night to take care of her, that will never go away.
The last paragraph of this post is so perfectly true. I do the "would-haves" and "should-haves" all the time. I am almost 18 months into my loss and I still forget about the "supposed-to-be's". Kayla has a wonderful momma; thanks for sharing so honestly.
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