avoidance

Yesterday I spent swallowing down advil and grief
cramps in waves and my body making sure I knew that my lawn mowing was off limits
and that horizontal was the orientation of choice
and that stillness was preferred

but see, I suck at this. I am better at warp speed, busy, moving, avoiding.
To stay still means to be with this. And this, This is more than I can handle.

Finally I fell asleep sometime late afternoon, and woke in the thick of sadness. And pressed my face against the chest of my sweetie and just sobbed. I hate it. Hate the sadness, hate more the reason for it. Hate the fact that there is nothing I can do about it, nothing I can take action against, nothing I can change by effort or knowledge.

And once again I am so thoroughly aware of the fact that this Science is not all that. It is also so much luck. Odds. Dice.

Damn it.

Yesterday I wrote of the hope for gentleness and acceptance. And what I meant was, I wish I could stop fighting against my own reality. This is my truth right now. It is. It also happens to suck. But acceptance does not mean a warm embrace. It means that the energy I am putting into fighting this and wishing it weren't so can maybe go elsewhere. A grand idea, an Ideal, but I am not done fighting this yet. I can tell.

I generally have two main modes of operation for things that scare me or that hurt: avoidance (my personal favorite), and finally, confrontation in spite of fear. I avoid until I can't, then I run at it yelling with my arms waving (sometimes just roaring and flailing).

In this case, what can I avoid? Grief comes anyway. As does the cramping reminder of changes deep inside. The fatigue of pregnancy has given way to the fatigue of sadness and body-hurt. There is no long term avoidance. I can stay busy, be "fine", act as if all is ok. But it does not change that it is not. The upwellings come, and I am nearly paralyzed with sadness, and then they go, and I am functional.

I know I need to wait. I suck at this part too. I am not patient. I am not that kind of resilient. I want to be fine. And I know I will approach that as time goes on, I know. I know my body will stop hurting and my early pregnant belly will recede, and somehow I will get my period and we can decide what the hell we are doing.

But my self? My kateness? Bruised almost beyond recognition, and I am SO PISSED OFF that my constant vigilance, my guard being up, my worry, could do nothing to cushion the blow. Of course not, I know. It couldn't. I know that too. And I also know I will do all of that wasted worry again should I be so lucky. I am sure I cannot help myself, especially not now.

I also realized, should I be so lucky, I will probably never look at the ultrasound monitor again before someone else tells me things are ok. I never want to see something that bad again.


So today, advil, stillness, focused attention on the work that piled up fast while I was gone.
There is momentary avoidance built in to this busy-ness, but then there it is, unavoidably, sitting with its dirty feet on my couch: hello grief. One sugar or two?