Friday, May 11, 2012

Wherein you get inside mah brains

It's been over a month since I posted. I know you've missed me. I don't have an excuse for not posting other than I forgot? I'm lazy? I didn't have anything nice to say?

This time of year I always get in a funk. It's my SAD time. It's this time of year that graduates are graduating. New babies are being born. So many things are beginning and ending for so many people. Spring is supposed to be a time of renewal and I get that.

I don't know that I've ever really talked about this with anyone. I might have mentioned in passing the overwhelming sense of...something I feel every year at this time. Loss? Guilt? I'm not sure I can put it into words.

You see, 11 years ago I was pregnant. I was also a senior in high school getting ready to graduate. We weren't sure of the due date. (That's another story for another day. I'll leave it at I was 18 and wasn't paying attention to anything other than getting through high school and living at home.) I went into labor at 1:17 in the morning. I got up to go to the bathroom and my water broke. I woke my mom up, took a shower, and off to the hospital we went. At 10:36, my daughter came into the world. Blue eyed, red haired and left handed (Exactly the way I knew she would be).

That day was also exactly two weeks before my graduation ceremony.

I didn't get to "finish" my senior year. A teacher came to my house to proctor my final exams. My best friend took my year book for everyone to sign. I didn't get to sit in my classes talking about the future with everyone. I was at home, trying to figure out how to take care of a baby. I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

Two days before the graduation ceremony, I went to see my doctor. Not because I was sick. I had talked with my vice principal. I had to have a doctor's note to walk at my graduation. I was determined to walk across that stage. I didn't care that I was two weeks postpartum and had been back in the hospital with mastitis.  I was walking across that stage and getting my diploma, dammit!

And I did. My daughter was in the stands sleeping watching her momma get her high school diploma.

It's just a weird time of year for me. Yes, I'm happy to celebrate my daughter's birth, but at the same time the "What if?" game gets me.

Excuse me while I drown my sorrows in Diet Coke.

2 comments:

  1. I can't believe it has taken me till now to read this (sorry!). My mother, for whatever reason, always suffers terribly in September (start of school) and January (her birthday) so I am pretty used to cyclical grief. I struggle sometimes with the Christmas holiday season, though since having kids it has made a lot of things quite different so it is not nearly as ... all encompassing. Mostly because it comes and goes frighteningly fast.

    Also, I had a baby with an unknown due date ... and I was nearly 40 so ... I don't have a great excuse for that one.

    I'm pretty much in awe of your taking things by the proverbial balls and walking across that stage to get your diploma but also a bit disgusted with a VP (or school system) that made you go and prostate yourself for a doctor's note to simply walk across their stage. I mean, really?!

    What if games are such hard ones. I've been playing them in my head lately too, second guessing some things that I'm not sure I'd do differently, but ... well ... what if. Funny, I wouldn't exchange my situation for anything but it doesn't change me wondering. Some of my what ifs, though, have no answers because everything was so far out of my control, my what ifs would have to be addressed toward adults who were in my life at the time, though on second thought the roots of yours likely would have had to have been too. Those what ifs are such mind f***s, I think.

    Now I'm rambling, but you know, what else is new. I guess what I really want to say is that I feel ya, most of the time I can let the what if's go, but sometimes it is hard. Thanks for writing this, sorry I came so late to the party (I suck, I know) but it is weirdly nice to know that I am not the only one who struggles with what ifs.

    How's that move coming along?

    ReplyDelete
  2.  crap, that's like a blog entry of my own. Sorry(ish).

    ReplyDelete