Doodle 076 - Remembrance

Today it is pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day. To be sincere, even when I am part of many of the women that have suffered through this type of loss I never even knew such day existed.

Why? Simple: I try not to dwell on things too much. As a child I was taught to be stoic, that no good would come from crying, that the world is by nature unfair and harsh, so letting tragedies bring me down would make my life even harder than it could be.

As I deal with my own sense of loss and recovery I have come to find out it is very hard to keep everything tightly wrapped in a corner of my heart/mind. The bigger the loss, the bigger the box I had to stuff it in, the more difficult it was to keep a tight lid on it, the easier it became for my fears, pain and demons to come out whenever I was at my most vulnerable.

And I do have a rather gigantic sense of loss about this one particular thing in my life.

Right now I can tell you I feel incredibly sad about the fact that I'll never be a mom... so sad I really can't wrap my mind around it.

For as long as I can remember I wanted to find someone that loved me as much as I loved him, someone I could count on no matter what, someone that wouldn't abandon me, someone I could protect and stand by as well, and truly, before I met Andrei, that possibility alone seemed incredibly remote and far fetched.

Once I found that someone I was determined to start my own family, have a couple of kids, because even knowing how incredibly hard and never-ending being a parent is, I wanted to become a mom, I wanted us to have the chance to try and teach our own children how to grow up to be an awesome person. I wanted us to be like those parents that truly love their children, put them first and still manage to hang on to their sense of individuality and keep their marriage strong.

I wanted to take our kids on trips, teach them to swim, talk, walk, draw, read, sing, dance, be kind, thoughtful, independent, strong and gentle all at once. I wanted to worry about them, laugh with them, celebrate and hold them tight when things weren't going like they would like and finally, I wanted us to see them go on and have their own lives, hopefully as happy as any parent would like their kids to be, doing whatever they grew to love.

I was ready for the job, the sleepless nights, the teething, colics, fevers, the flu seasons, the scrapes, any other malady that came our way, even the teenage years angst and struggle... I was ready for it all.

And then... it all was denied to me... just by matter of sheer terrible luck.

I am not sure how to explain what it feels like, to know something you have wanted so badly for so long and that so many people do every single day around you, with what looks like ease, will probably never be available to you... and what is worse, that you did try, to the very best of your ability, putting every ounce of effort on it, and you still didn't manage to pull it off.

In a way... it feels like pieces of my heart are missing, like something that was meant to be there, something you love more than yourself isn't there anymore. You keep wanting to fill the space back up, but nothing you do manages to plug up the hole... it just exists and you have the nagging and rather terrible sensation that it might never, ever go away.

When yet another of my friends or family excitedly lets me know they are expecting I am incredibly happy, but soon after I am equally angry at myself. It isn't rational, but there it arrives, a recrimination that I make to myself: "Why can't you do it too? This is all your fault".

And I sink down on a small dark recess of my own mind. Sometimes I'll cry, sometimes I will tell Andrei, sometimes I will just keep everything to myself, put on my happy-go-lucky mask and wait it out, hoping it will wash away.

By the time the baby shower rolls around I am better. I will excitedly go and buy a baby gift, happy that I finally get to buy something incredibly cute and small, something I would have loved to buy myself, but can't.

After nearly one decade I have gotten a bit better... but I will be very sincere, I am nowhere as well as I should be.

I am not really sure when, or if I'll ever be OK, I know that I will always be sad about not being able to do something that seems to be easy to so many, something that was supposed to be easy for me.

When parents complain about their kids over and over, act as if they never wanted them to begin with, when they mistreat them, abuse them and throw their hands up in the air because parenthood wasn't as easy as they had imagined, I feel this incredible pang of anger and disdain.

Life isn't fair, I learned that while growing up, things won't always go as planned. All one can do in life is try to roll with the punches, try to stay as true to one self as possible while adapting, and try to be happy through it all.

Sometimes though, being happy seems like a mighty tall order, we stumble and struggle to get back up... still, I am very lucky, I am still alive, I have Andrei, my family, friends, you guys.

All in all, even with the painful loss of my dream, the things that could have been but will never be... I am willing to admit that my life is still wonderful in many ways, and so I will keep on smiling, hoping that one day, even the darkest shadows within my heart, even those holes I can never patch up, will eventually become slightly brighter and less painful.

And today I will remember, at least for this one time, I will remember all I have lost, all that has been left behind, but at the same time, I'll look forward to tomorrow, to something new, to something bright, because I wasn't made to regret, I wasn't made to grieve, I was made to live and try my best to be happy.

Remembrance - non-photo blue pencil, graphite and mechanical pencil on plain Moleskine notebook. Aprox 20 mins.