Love to Carly

It’s been another rough week for Brad, Christa and Carly. Send them over some love today if you can.

Light Another Candle

I liked that the annual Compassionate Friends candle lighting happened to fall on Hanukkah. These days I feel like my thoughts of Silas are just slipping away, and I can’t seem to figure out how to stop it. We don’t do anything to honor him these days. I think we’re just bogged down with everything else. Losing Silas is old news, all this other crap, it is what we deal with in the present. Though his loss is that umbrella with which we stand under of course. We’ve already dealt with the worst, but lately the daily trials and tribulations just seem to get harder and harder to deal with.

Yesterday we had crazy rainstorms all day and it made me so melancholy.  Early in the evening I started looking around the apt for Bandha and couldn’t find him. Chris and I ran to the back door and opened it, there stood our kitty, soaking wet and shaken. He was out there for 5 hours, at least! I lost it – in a way that I haven’t in a really long time. Obviously a good cry was waiting for that moment because I sobbed.  I sobbed so much harder then I have in a really really long time. I felt so bad, like I was such a terrible mom to do that to my cat. They are my babies right now, my only ones and I didn’t even know he wasn’t here in our apt?

I already felt like a bad mom for the fact that we don’t do anything to honor Silas except when we’re told to “light a candle.” Then I leave my cat in the rain for 5 hours? Ugh. It sucked and I just wanted to be unhappy and mad at myself the rest of the night. It was as if I had to punish myself for everything that is going wrong in our lives right now.

I hate the complaining, the constant complaining. But I also hate the pretending that all is fine. Not sure how to strike that balance but I’m working hard on that every second of every day.

Yesterday I just wanted to be sad. It was one of those days. I know these days are rough for all of us- the holidays are just hard- period. It’s just I feel so empty and missing my baby, and my patience for a new little one to take shape is wearing thin.

Bandha seems fine today. I dried him off, fed him his favorite food and gave him as much love as I could. I held him tight to my body and showered him with kisses and just cried for my babies.

process this

Last week I found the lowest of the lows.  I had some bad days in there, days where it felt like I won’t ever feel ok again.

But then here I am, feeling ok. Very ok even. I allowed myself to go there, to sink deep in the sadness, in order to feel the highs, the joy and the fun.

Last Thursday was a crazy day. I had to rush from one school to the next, all day long. I went from here to there and back again. My last class was at a yoga center and I taught until 5:30. The problem was that I needed to make a 5:56 train to NYC to make an 8:00 Phish show. I had some new students coming, so leaving early wasn’t a possibility. The owner of the studio offered to drive me to the train, and promised she’d get me there on time.

All week I had worked hard to figure out how I could make this train. I bought my ticket the day before. I scoped out places to possibly park my car if I drove myself. I asked some friends for a ride based on the possibility of leaving early. When Jen offered me the ride, I accepted knowing full well that we may not make it.

When I got in the car and the time drew closer and closer to 5:56, I was actually very calm. Jen, who promised to get me there on time- she was the one who was so nervous! I just thought to myself-

“If I don’t make it, no big deal.”

I had to. Otherwise I was setting myself up for a huge disappointment. And we all know how that goes. These days I find that I am talking myself into and out of all sorts of things in order to cope.

But, I made it, out of breath and with minutes to spare.  The train ride turned out to be as relaxing as it gets. After such a long day & the possibility of missing it, I was positively giddy! I did my crosswords, listened to the previous nights show on my ipod and just chilled out.

When I arrived, I had exactly 20 min to get from Grand Central to MSG. The race was on! Somehow, public transportation got me there meeting Chris inside as the opening notes began to play. By the time we got to our seats, I was so raring to go and thrilled that I pulled it off!

I had a great night. The music naturally takes my mind to places I sometimes don’t want to go. Like in Albany. Not this time- I made sure of it.

I had been so nervous that my downward spiral was just that. I really believed I would never get back out. That night I made a conscious choice to feel good and it worked.

The next day was also a lot of fun. We went and did a coffee cupping at the distributor where Chris buys his green beans to roast up for all his accounts.  A coffee cupping is kind of like a wine tasting. There is a whole methodology to it and I’m learning so much more about coffee then I’d ever imagined!

The show Friday night blew Thursdays out of the water. It was unbelievable, they were on fire. They played everything I wanted to hear, and it was just a perfect night of letting loose. Letting all the piles of shit fall off my shoulders as I danced my ass off.

Don’t get me wrong, all is not perfect right now. Far from it. The point is that I can still go there. I can find that joy- the fun, the place where I don’t feel like my world is caving in on me. I started getting nervous that I may not be able to do that.

I look back on how awful it felt to hear the news, and then how I needed to process it in order to feel ok with it. I’m sure that for some time, as long as I’m not pregnant, it will still be hard. All that matters is that today I don’t feel like I’m buried, unable to come up for air.

2 steps forward…

These days I go 2 steps forward and 10 steps back. It’s become the story of my life.  Oh how I cannot wait until 2009 is but a distant memory. What a year it’s been- and it just hasn’t let up.

I’ll start with a few steps forward and the awesome weekend on my dead baby mama retreat. I have been wanting to write about this for days, but some news when I returned sent me those 10 steps back.

I was so fortunate to be able to meet and hang with these 9 beautiful women. Angie, Tash, Tracy, Sarah, Niobe, Julia, Molly, m, Laura & I traveled near and far to spend the weekend in a rented house in Ocean City, NJ. Being the Jersey girl that I am, I was shocked to never have spent any time in this little slice of heaven.

There was knitting, chatting, sharing, cooking, boardwalk strolling, baking, arts & crafts making, laughing, game playing, drinking and relaxing going on at all times. It was a much needed time away from home, time to be with the girls- the ones who get it. Such a rarity to be able to share a few days with other women who really know exactly how you feel. It is quite unfortunate we met this way, but also completely necessary.

The next day, I got the worst good news ever. Another pregnancy.  So instead of being able to feed off of my wonderful weekend for a bit, I was sent into a tailspin and even to this day, have not fully recovered.

I expect pregnancy news all the time. It is what happens when all of your friends are married and ready to procreate. But every time, it just stings. This one though, I wasn’t prepared or ready for so it threw me for a complete loop. But this is how my life has been going lately.

The timing of this particular news was hard. We had to go and celebrate Thanksgiving somehow and pretend we were ok and that things in our life are not such a miserable mess.

And then someone said “Isn’t good news better then bad news?”

But Chris and I just want no news. And then the torment of my own mind when I think  “we should be happy for them.”

I am. Of course I am. These are people I love with all my heart.  But I’m sadder for us and that trumps any happiness I may feel. These feelings may pass in time, but this is how I feel right now and in order to get through them and get rid of them, I need to experience them. That much I know (thank you therapy).

It turned out that everyone was pretty amazing all weekend long- both the Thursday Gallagher Thanksgiving and the Friday Rosen Thanksgiving’s were really nice.  Somehow we even managed to laugh and have a good time.

My beautiful 24lb heritage turkey that I made for the Gallagher’s turned out delicious and that helped. But we are still needing to be protected, coddled and treated like the fragile beings we are. I hate being fragile and that I may crack at any given moment.  And yet that is how I feel. You could have swept the pieces of me off the floor of the theater on Sat night.

We decided to take a risk and drive up to Albany on Saturday to see Phish. We were ticketless but we heard they were giving away tickets the night before- there were many extras around. We got lucky and friends found us tickets really cheap. The night started well, but then I began to spiral into the abyss. It happened and I couldn’t seem to stop it.

It happened in an environment where I can usually let it all go and just have fun. I couldn’t do it. Chris couldn’t pull me out of it and I just delved into this deep funk and that was it. I was a lost cause. I hate the waste of what could have been a super fun night. Apparently it was some of the best music they’ve played since they started playing again but I couldn’t tell you that.

As I sit here writing, I’m still feeling so melancholy. I feel like I just need this month to sail on by so I can say goodbye to this year and this decade once and for all. I just need a fresh start.

I am Jewish so there has been no Christmas traditions in my own life- though I’ve become part of the Gallagher Christmas every year. Here in our own home, we don’t do a tree or celebrate in any way. For a few years in SF and our first year here in NH, we threw a Festivus party the day after Christmas. Now that was the way to celebrate the holidays! We didn’t do one last year, and for sure it won’t be happening this year. But that is a Gallagosen tradition I want to bring back at some point.

I don’t feel hopeful anymore, at least not this minute. There is more music for us on the horizon, but then it’s getting through the holiday barrage which I am not looking forward to in the least.

I will keep walking forward though, it’s all I can do.