Wow.
I feel like it’s been forever since I came on and wrote anything. It used to be a place of comfort, but now I find it seems to be a place of turmoil. Writing feels like I’m a fraud at times now, like if I write about all the positives and how far I’ve come, it sounds like I’m not grieving or remembering, but that’s not the case. I said before how it feels like life shouldn’t go on without our child, like the world stopped spinning for us, and yet we still have to get up and go on every day, and it’s weird.
Part of me wants to crawl into a hole every day and just sit and remember… But then I remember I don’t have that luxury of sitting with my grief right now because I have other children to raise, and battles to fight and my own demons to banish. It’s almost as if life knew I wouldn’t be able to get through grieving the loss of Aurora, so it threw 7 million other hurdles at me to stall it, but what happens when there are no more hurdles? What happens when my kids grow up and become more independent and I’m not needed 24/7? What happens if years and years of grief build up and then suddenly come out in one hit and I combust with all this resentment and anger I’m convinced I’ve let go of?
I wouldn’t say I haven’t grieved at all, I’d say I’ve had a fair few break downs this year. Fallen into old habits and returned to vices I thought I’d got over, but when your crutch has always been controversial, it’s hard to explain. I often go into self sabotage mode when I’m at my lowest, and I think whilst this year has been made up of some of the highest points of my life, it’s also shown me some of the lowest.
Sometimes there’s no explanation for anything I do or feel. I don’t know why my skin feels heavy and some days I haven’t got the energy to respond to texts but I can read an entire book. Whilst keeping busy has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember, it’s peaked this year. I’m so restless, like if I sit down for too long, I’ll grieve and I’m not ready for that.
It’s not only hard trying to manage my own grief, but managing Ada’s too. She cries almost daily now about Aurora and the fact that she can’t come down from the moon, but she’s so inquisitive. Whilst I’m glad she remembers, it’s hard to offer her comfort when I can’t do anything to fix it… She’s obsessed with her sister, and it’s a beautiful thing to hear every day, but it’s also hard. It’s hard because Ada is so much like Aurora it’s scary, and whilst I should find comfort in it, I often find heartbreak… That Ada’s getting excited to watch films Rory loved, and build Lego like Rory used to and crack jokes just like her sister. It’s hard because I worry whether I’m projecting the fact that I miss Aurora on to Ada, and I don’t want her to grow up feeling like I never treated her as an individual.
Motherhood is complex.
I read that worrying about whether you’re a good mum or not, is proof that you are in fact doing a good job, but it’s easy to feel like a failure. I think we all do at some point. I’ve tried to be more patient and present with the kids which isn’t easy when you’re dealing with meltdowns 1200 times a day. Tried to spend more time doing tedious things that I hope they will remember forever, and that’s all I can do. Some days it takes literally every ounce of my energy to just show up and parent, and yet I don’t have the luxury of just not doing it.
But it’s fucking hard. It’s hard with “normal” kids, but my kids are ALL the way fucked up. Ada’s like a savant, who remembers what you told her 492 days ago, and Oscar is …. Well, Oscar.
When Rory was coming to the end of her journey and I was going through the phases of grief, I started bargaining with anything I possibly could… Anything that would make losing her seem like it was the right thing. One of them was the idea that when she passed away, I wouldn’t have to play nurse anymore, but that’s not the case. I’m still giving medication multiple times a day, in and out of hospital, not sleeping, fighting for the best care for my children, arguing the toss over mistakes made, and it’s constant. It’s like trauma is a daily thing that gets belittled now that I’m able to put a positive spin on everything, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m grieving.
Grieving the loss of my eldest.
Grieving the loss of the future I had in mind for my son.
And grieving that despite being right there, my daughter doesn’t get the best of me because everything else is too chaotic.
Growing Pains and Paper Planes 