Long December

It's been a while since my last post. I have been doing something I am often guilty of - filling up my days and nights with so many activities I don't have time to sit and stare....or think. Thinking is something I do constantly when I'm not distracted, which is usually fine. I am an only child and have been left alone with my thoughts my entire life. It's part of the reason I know myself as well as I do, and I like that part of me. But for the past 9 months, time to think only means time to think about what we've been through. Losing Webb. The miscarriage. The horrible infection and aftermath of the infection. The unsure, unstable future. I am also stuck in a place where I don't want to be continuously pitied, but I can't stand to think people have "forgotten" what we've been through, what we continue to go through. I have seen such a shift in how I relate to others and to the outside world. I want to be the same as I was on December 22, 2008, but the truth is, that person is gone. I still have many of her characteristics, but for the most part, she is gone. I am less tolerant of many personality traits and situations that used to make me merely roll my eyes. I am now completely annoyed by people who pick petty fights or worry about insignificant things. Don't they know??? Don't they realize the only important thing in life is that their children are still alive??? Then I have to remind myself, of course they do, but they haven't been through what you've been through. And I have to be the first to admit I used to get worked up about things that no longer phase me. It's human nature, and it's all relative, but it's sometimes hard for the new me to operate in the world of the old way of looking at things. I put on a happy face, and I continue to trudge through my days, and sometimes it's real, and sometimes it's fake, but right now, it's the only way. I always had a sense it would get harder as the months wore on. They say "time" is the greatest healer, but I think that is only true on some levels. Because really, what time does, is blur the past into distant memories so it is not all you have to think about. It will not bring Webb back. It will not magically change me into the person I used to be. It will not make me happier, or more settled. In some ways, time is my worst enemy because each day is one day further from the last time I saw my baby, and I don't WANT those memories to fade.
I went back and read the paragraph above and realized it sounds a bit rambling. But instead of trying to make it make sense, I left it because it represents how I feel right now - all over the place. In 30 minutes, I will no doubt be crying over the fact that so many people love me and continue to pick me up when I fall. It is the conflicting emotions I have talked about many times - the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It's leading a bipolar life but not having the disease. It's a tough way to live.
I have used many songs on this blog and in my life to express how I am feeling. By now, faithful readers know I relate my life to music, and that one of the bands I do this with is the Counting Crows. I have all their albums and love to look for the deeper meanings in their songs. Although I have heard it a million times and know every word by heart, I am not sure why "Long December" has never occurred to me once over the past 9 months. But it was on the other day when I was driving home in the rain, and I almost had to pull over at some of the verses, like "the smell of hospitals in winter, and the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls;" or "I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass..." It made me think about my "Long December" and I wondered, " Will I ever see a reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last?" I hope so. But so far....no such luck.