Grief and the Real Me

My kids and I on our way to visit my sister. 

I miscarried last month. Normally I’m a little more reserved about sharing stuff like this, but what’s the point of writing non-fiction if not to share something real? And this is as real as it’s got for me lately.

This last month has been hard. There’s this disconnect between what I know and what I feel. I know many women also have miscarried and some never even speak of it. I know five weeks is really not that long and other women have had it worse. I know God still has a plan for me and that I’m blessed to have two children. I know. I know. 

But I still feel like crap. I’m still depressed. I cry at stupid times over seemly nothing and didn’t write for four weeks. I binge watched Korean romances and my house fell apart. I felt angry, sad, hopeless, and frustrated, in alternating rotations, sometimes within one hour.

I’ve been thinking about myself, the me underneath everything that happens to me and around me and through me. I’ve also been thinking about depression, hormones, and emotions. It’s struck me more than once that my emotions aren’t me. My depression isn’t me. My anxiety, fear, and my imperfect body are not me. They are what’s happening to me.

I have to tell myself it's okay to grieve. Sorrow and sadness are the mirrors of hope and love. That is how it’s supposed to be. Maybe we can only feel as much love as we are willing to feel sorrow.

Little by little, I’m getting myself back. I write a bit here and there, read, and clean my house. I go on a trip to visit my sister. I stand in a parking lot and my dad and mom wrap their arms around me and tell me things that I need to hear. Even though I’m thirty and supposed to be all grown-up, I cry on them and feel better. I go to a ward barbecue and though I can't find it in me to really talk to anyone beyond the usual hellos, I feel a spark of the old me reemerging as I look for the missing shoes of my neighbor's children.

Tiny things. Tiny moments. I fight to let myself grieve, to stop judging myself, and let what I feel be honest and true.

I start to wake up.

I see blessings; gratitude breaking through the hurt and leaving my heart softened for the re-planting of faith. It becomes my stepping off point for all the good that can be found, somewhere. In a future still opening to me, still unfolding into a distance marked with hope. Because none of this is me. It’s my test. It’s my journey. It’s supposed to hurt. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s a million things tailored perfectly for me. The real me. The me I sort of know, but can’t quite remember, who understands that this life is a blip in my eternity. 

The real me continues, before this and after this, always and ever a daughter of God. And that's non-fiction, in the realist of ways.