Day 16: Seasons

My favorite season is by far fall.  I definitely enjoy all the seasons, but fall is the best, in my opinion.  Summer gets too hot, spring is all muddy, and winter is way too long (and too cold sometimes, too!).  Fall, the temperatures are perfect.  Pumpkins and apples are fresh and yummy!  The leaves are changing and it is beautiful all around me.  Living in the Northeast with four different seasons is definitely a plus.  Besides, we have some of the prettiest foliage!

Fall is also Halloween and Thanksgiving.  I love carving my pumpkins and Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday in our home.  We love cooking and spending time with our families.  The food that you get to make in the fall is definitely the best. :)  Pumpkin pie, donuts, apple crisp, sweet potato casserole, turkey, stuffing...all so yummy.

I like getting ready to hibernate for winter...planning the books I will read while curled up in my blanket.  Catching up with movies and crocheting and knitting.  I am a home body and it's a time to be able to curl up at home and just enjoy being in my home.
Fall is probably the one time of year that it is definite that things are changing.  The leaves are changing colors and falling off of the trees.  It is also the season my boys were born in.  It is bittersweet.  I missed last fall in my haze of depression.  This year, I got to enjoy it.  Though it was hard at times...realizing that I'm not celebrating fall with my babies like I should be.

Change.  It is that reminder that things change and life has changed so very much.  Of the people that are still here and those that have walked out of our lives.  It is both painful and refreshing.  Change is hard though.  I like change, to an extent, but it is hard to see people you thought would always be there leave.  For me change is also a fresh start.  A way to start new and move forward.  A reminder to move forward.  Despite what life has thrown at us, we are accepting change and moving forward.

Day 7: You Now

I'm not sure I could say that I'm grieving less...or feel better...or that life is great.  What I can say is that I've learned to appreciate life so much more.  To count my blessings and see the positive in every day.  But I still have bad days.  I still often cry.  Triggers still bring me to my knees...and there are so many triggers.  I try to face my fears, but sometimes even that is debilitating.  I feel drained after...like I've run a marathon.  I could sleep for hours those days.

And lately, I'm back to my coping mechanism...my knitting and crocheting.  I have to say, that was what got me through my days after the boys.  It was the only thing that distracted me enough to not breakdown every second of every day.  And I see the stress and frustration in myself as I am back into that pattern.  Where I'd rather sit at home and watch a movie and knit or crochet than to go out and visit friends or do anything else.  I always really have been a homebody...but I feel so much more inclined to stay home again.  It's not that I don't want to see friends, but I just don't feel the energy to go out and see people.  I don't know whether that's work related (it's been busy lately), or if it's the fact that now that I've hit the first year marks that I'm still circling...like before I hit the one year marks, I had something to look toward...hitting that...and now what?  IVF? Adoption?  Because neither of those induce stress or anxiety (insert sarcasm).

All I know is that I definitely do have more strong days than weak ones.  More days where I can feel myself smile rather than cry.  But it's still this battle every day not to cry.  Not to break down.  I still struggle seeing women pregnant.  Hearing pregnancy announcements.  Half the time I just want to scream.  Other times I just want to shake those women and say, pregnancy is a beautiful thing, but I think it's SO private.  It is wonderful, and believe me, I will be one of the first to say it will be hard not to yell it from the rooftops when I am pregnant again...but it hurts...and so many people don't understand how to be sensitive about it.  Whether that's around someone who has problems with fertility or someone who has lost a child.  Either way, it is SO important to know that others are fighting their battles and you don't know who is fighting one for what reasons.  Everyone has their own.  I just wish more people would understand that as excited as you are about your pregnancy, the person next to you may be wondering "why not me?" or "will that ever be me?"  And strangely...as I've said before...I struggle SO much more with pregnancy than I do with babies...and that's probably the biggest thing that has not changed.  People just don't appreciate the miracle of it.  *sigh*

So I guess I still have a lot of resentment and frustration.  And that's my weakness.  My biggest weakness.  I don't even know how to cope with it.  I've done the best I can and I really do keep my mouth shut about a lot of the things I'd like to say to people.  I guess that's my way of coping...to just bottle it in so as not to hurt people with my true thoughts.

Positive changes?  I've lost a lot more weight.  Made positive diet and exercise changes.  Been so much more active.  Weeded through the people in my life and chosen to keep in touch with those who can be as much my friend as I can be for them.  Eliminated the ones who make me feel worse rather than better.  And changed jobs to a place that I love going to work every day.  Where I feel challenged.  A job that will be the right fit when we do have a family.  I just know that so many things have happened that are good, too.  My life isn't all bad.  I just feel like I have had more challenges than most.  Someday, maybe, something in my life will come easy like it seems to for all the other lucky people in the world.  Someday I will feel like I am 100% fulfilled.  But until I get to hold, love, and raise my own child in this world, I know I won't be fulfilled.  I'm still searching for that one missing piece...honestly, I feel like that is ALL that is missing in my life at this point...though I know I will always miss my boys, I don't feel like I will be searching once I have that child in my arms...