Right Where I Am

Thank you Angie for coming up with this project. For so long, I have read her blog and always found her posts to be so true and she has a beautiful way of writing. Go ahead and check out her blog if you have not before. I also like this because it's making me do an actual post in here and I feel like Alexandra's space has been somewhat neglected lately. I feel like I have nothing more to say about losing her... I haven't forgotten her at all and I think of her every day. I just feel like I'm at a loss for words over the whole thing.

So where am I in this grief lately eighteen months out? It's definitely different. Like I said in my last post about the Rabbit Hole, my grief has obviously changed. I look at where I was last year at this time and it still seemed so heavy. Pregnant women still bothered me. Babies made me want to cry. Forget about walking down any baby aisles or seeing any baby items. It was too much and still too soon.

Now a year later, it's different again. For one thing, Alexandra's brother is here. My life is at a "happy" place (or that is what it would SEEM to be like, I guess). As "happy" as my life can be with one baby in the ground anyway. Looking at me, you would see someone who is actually able to finally enjoy all of the things that I had wished for so much about a year ago. I have a perfect little baby here. I have a horrible addiction to buying baby clothes now, but I still cannot bring myself to be in the little girls section. That still hasn't changed. That section makes me sad. It just makes me think of Alexandra that much more and if for whatever reason I do have to be there, I usually grab a thing and rush out real fast. Pregnant women still bother me, believe it or not. Not all of them, but if I hear an announcement from some random person who I know already has a ton of kids or acts like she hates her present ones, my heart still kind of sinks. It still hurts. Why did I lose my baby that I wanted so badly? Why is it so easy for some people and so hard for so many others? I guess there is still some degree of jealousy and bitterness over it all. And that also remains for all of the people who never showed me support or continue to not show me any support. I know a lot of people write about forgiveness (I know I have) and try and make peace with those people, but it's hard. How do you make peace with someone who denies the fact that your firstborn ever existed in the first place? How do you make peace with someone who told you to "forget about her"? I still struggle with that and it still makes me feel guilty that I cannot bring myself to forgive sometimes.

But for the most part, I have good days.  I can go through my days and act like "Maggie" for most of the time. I still think of Alexandra every single day. Sometimes if a trigger shows up unexpectedly, I'm right back to that dark place and I can feel my heart breaking...again. I hate those times. Those are the times I hate that this is my life. That every so often, I have to feel my heart break because my daughter is gone. Why should anyone ever feel that?

I still blog and read when I can. Not quite as often as I did before, but I still do it. This space is Alexandra's and has been so helpful for me in so many ways. A lot of new friends are in my life now thanks to this space and I honestly don't know how I could have made it without them. Therapy is not my "thing" and I'm so thankful to have stumbled upon so many blogs after Alexandra died. It led me to here and it made me some life long friends as well. So my new "friends" are so important to me because like so many others, I have lost some friends, which is such a sad thing to have happen.

So, this is where I am. I'm in this place where I look okay and normal. I'm in the place I wanted to be a year ago, but I'm also in a place where my daughter is still gone and was taken away from me for no real known reason. I'm still trying to understand it. I don't think I ever will (how can you?). But I'm still here. In this place, in this space and thinking of her and holding her close in my heart because that's all I can seem to do for her now. Just holding on and never forgetting...