2008 a year without hope?

Before I describe what saying goodbye to 2008 is like, I have to reflect on what I thought about saying goodbye to 2007. So here is my entry, a little over a month after I lost my son:

2007 was the year of Hope. I had more hopes and dreams than ever
before in my life. I'm no stranger to disappointed hopes. I've seen
them crumble many times. But I've never questioned my ability to hope
again afterwards (okay, maybe after the 2004 elections, something about 4 more
years of Bush). But when Myles died, I've never seen my hopes
and dreams so completely anihilated. The feeling of it was like watching
those hopes, not just dashed to pieces; but beaten to a pulp, then ground into
the dirt, then shit on. And much of my recent existential
quandaries now revolve around even trying to justify the will to
hope. Emotionally, I don't have it in me anymore. Logically,
I can't see a reason why I ever dared to hope in the first place given my
beliefs.

Although I may appear a cynic, its always been my biggest con.
I'm a poser. Deep down, I've always been a hopeful person, even to
the point of naivete. If anyone asks, I say that I'm sure the worst will
happen, but in my mind I always hold out hope for the best.
I can think to so many moments in my life where I've been so filled with hope
and excitement, it was like my heart could burst. And last year
was filled to the brim with that heart-bursting hope. I just forced
myself to believe that everything would work out, all would fall into
place, and for so much of the year it really appeared it would.

So, saying goodbye to 2007 is quite a sad affair for me. I'm not just
saying goodbye to my son again (which I went and did today, and I will continue
to do for as long as it takes to set in). It's like I'm saying goodbye to
that piece of me that dared to hope. It's like I'm saying goodbye to hope
itself. I've already mourned so much, but now I mourn even for the New
Year. I've always loved the New Year. So much more
than xmas. Why? No, its not the drugs and parties you
fucking smart alec. It was that sense of hope! Hope that
maybe, just maybe, the next year would be better than the last. And this
year, I don't fucking have it. I feel like there is nothing for me in
2008.

Fuckmas

So I've been operating on the assumption that everyone just wanted me to be THERE for Christmas. Nothing more nothing less. I wasn't told I had to be sociable, play games, take pictures, etc., etc. And I didn't expect that I would have to. At every christmas I've been to (My mom's and my Dad's, they're long time divorced) I've done what I could. Sometimes that means I disappear; at my Mom's I came and layed down for a couple hours after the presents were unwrapped. I didn't eat with them. At my dad's I did similar (didn't want to sit and eat and chat with everybody) and there I hid out downstairs where the kids were playing hide and seek.

Was I morose? Yes. Unsociable? Yes. Did I talk or smile? here and there. I thanked them for their gifts, in fact, I was thanking my step mom before I left, and everybody else (my dad, sis, bro, sil, and 5 kids) all went outside. As I thank her, she just looks at me and says, "You need to get some help." I say 'what?' surprised but unshaken. Then she starts yelling at me, "YOU NEED TO GET SOME HELP, YOU DIDN'T TALK TO ANYBODY HERE." I disagreed, I most certainly did chat with my dad while he fried the turkey, my bro and sis, just most of it was one on one, private talks. And no, I never did talk to her because I generally don't like her.

I told her she was being rude, and she had no right to say that to me. She yelled at me that she cared about me and loved me (who YELLS such things?). I just walked away and muttered to her that she couldn't love me, she doesn't even KNOW me. At this point I'm opening the front door and she is following me, yelling(?!) If it had been any other day, I might have argued with her, but instead, i'm just as zombified by the whole weird confrontation as I've been all day. I open the front door, and she shouts out after me:

"You don't even deserve to have your daughter."

All of my REAL family looks over confused and surprised, who was just yelling?! I said very matter of factly as I got in my car that that was just step mom telling me I don't deserve my daughter. After which I promptly left with my sis and the kids.

All I can say is I'm not telling my mom because she would tear her a new one, and it would create rifts where there needn't be. I'm not worried about my dad, we had nice discussions about my divorce, my depression, whether or not to file for bankruptcy. We've actually talked a lot. So I'm just hoping she feels like an idiot. I'm not going to grace her 'opinion' with a response, she's not worth it to me. I just can't believe someone could be soooo cruel.

FYI, by 'help' she means religion. Her and my Dad think my problem is I 'haven't heard the good news!' (barf). What they don't understand is that everytime they bring it up, they might as well be telling me that if I were religious, none of this would've happened. This is my punishment. And if losing Myles wasn't a punishment, my anguish and difficulties in handling this is due to my lack of appropriate religiopioid. Ugh, my dad, in his gentle kind way, kept saying the word 'forget'. I have to forget. I have to forget? IIII have to forget?!

I will never forget!!!

Child Grief

My daughter has been talking about Myles more and more lately. Wait, first let me start by saying I've really been getting a kick out of how little my child thinks I know. I ask her who are the smartest people she knows? They're all cousins and friends from school, none over the age of 12. Who are the smartest adults? Her grandma's and grandpa's. Daddy and Mommy rank dead last, lol. So when I tell her to say 'fell' instead of 'falled' she completely argues with me. My parents think I'm getting what I deserve, lol, and they're right.

But it kind of took on a new meaning tonight, it really broke my heart. She was saying her ribs hurt, and asked why she had them and I explain they protect her lungs and heart. So she had a question about if a heart breaks, and I told her about cpr, and doctors fixing hearts, but that sometimes, people might die. And she said, 'Is that what happened to Myles?' And I don't know that, but I do know his heart stopped beating for some reason, so I was wavering. To reassure her, I said, "Simone his heart just stopped, and he didn't hurt, he was completely happy and loved, it didn't hurt him.'

And she said, "Mom, you finally figured it out." Getting more and more excited, as if I said something revolutionary. Then she said she missed Myles and started crying, she asked how old he would be now, how big. Then she stopped, as if this is the first time she ever asked it, "okay, Mom, but WHY did HIS heart stop beating?" and I had to say, 'I don't know, nobody knows'. And for the first time, she says, "but you have been alive for how long, and you're supposed to know all of this stuff, why don't you know that?"

And it occurs to me, no wonder she doesn't believe me, or believe in me, I couldn't even save her brother! Parents are gods I thought, and I know she still thinks I'm the greatest mom in the world, but deep down she knows I don't know everything, I can't stop everything, I can't protect her always, because that is how the world works.

She just wants me to have another baby, and I'm so dead set against it. She brings it up at least twice a week. And she'll say, but mom, if you had another baby, maybe it wouldn't die. And I said, maybe not, but it could, there's nothing we can do about that. And she's like, 'well, maybe we shouldn't have played with Myles so much.' And for the first time she said, "Mom, did [i]I[/i] play with him too much?"

I assured her, no, she didn't do anything wrong, we all did everything right. And even when you do everything right, there are no guarantees. Life just isn't fair.


Oh, I feel so terrible my poor dear has had to grow up so fast. How hard it is to watch her grow and for her to come up with new questions, new sources of pain from her loss. And I guess as she gets older, we'll revisit this discussion many many more times. It's just so hard to see the cruel world reveal itself even more as she develops and understands and can think about things more.

Perspective

A long time ago, my best friend made these compilation cd's from the 80's and 90's when we were in Middle School and went to teen dances. Well, I pulled them out, and what a walk through memory lane. Some songs have struck home harder now, than they did when I thought they said it all. 'Long December' by the counting crows is one example. 'Losing My Religion' and 'Everybody hurts' by REM. Although I was never a fan of this band or this song, it had me in tears:



He said of lot things I think I needed to hear. What I can appreciate about his pleas to his friend are his promise of understanding, sympathy, but assurance that the past (not Myles, but everything I've fucked up since losing Myles) can be left behind, along with the lies I've been living.

The suicidal ideation has passed for the most part. It's tempting, but inadequate. I have a suicide letter I'll post. I read it today when I was sitting on the toilet (don't ask) and it said everything I wanted to say, so I was surprised. It still wasn't enough though, you can never say enough, as you have all pointed out. Everyone would walk away from my death, wounded as badly or worse than when we lost Myles. Everyone except me, I guess.

I've been reading through old blogs. Actually I went back to the beginning after I got an email from a new atheist reader and a new November 2008 addition to our sad club of child loss.

I guess what I've read has really revealed many things at this moment. First, my typos are much worse the more in the pit I am. The alcohol was the worst answer to my terrible days. No matter how many rules I created, it still managed to engulf me, though I thought I was immune.

Having the bipolar diagnosis makes more sense than I'd like to admit. Bipolar isn't inherently bad however, as my Psychiatrist said today (and as I've read) many very creative successful people have bipolar. The times of mania, prior to losing Myles were actually times of high productivity, I was supermom, supergrad student, super housewife. I juggled 50 things, seemlessly, and now I look back, and I could only be manic to believe that I could do all those things, and then actually find that 'crazy' energy to actually pull them off.

So the deep depression after losing Myles lead to a much more volatile mania, the two extremes became much more extreme than they had in my life up until that point. Though I would argue in my adolescents that I was definitely on this teeter totter of periods of deep depression, then manic episodes accompanied by major risk taking. On days I felt 'good' it wasn't the real 'good', it was the scary 'good'. The kind of feeling that makes you act impulsively, so sure of yourself in an instant. But at the time, sure of what? Sure of nothing except my life had no meaning anymore, my values were not so valuable, I was invincible to alcohol, invincible to grief, all of which is utter bullshit. It's a very powerful feeling, indifference, don't let anyone fool you. It's so much easier to not care anymore.

Part of me would like to find myself, mentally, in the same place I was a few months after Myles death. Certainly miserable, but at least a clear miserable, not one hazed over by alcohol, drugs, and gardening (I was a MAD gardener, crazy). I had some insight then, insights that are even clearer to me now if I were to just write them out. Gifts from my Myles, secrets to this life that no one can know until it's 'too late' (but it's never too late). I so wanted to know these secrets in the months leading up to Myles death, if I had known them, maybe I would've cherished him more when I had him. But you can't go back. So I have to use those lessons now. It's not just Myles I need to appreciate, it's Simone, and my nieces and nephews, brother and sisters, Mom and Dad.

To commit suicide would be to not apply that knowledge Myles has given me, and that would be the biggest tragedy. Because his short life was not short of radiant, and full of so much meaning, I wouldn't change anything today. Because I know that if he had lived, there would still be no guarantee he'd be in my arms now, or forever. Same with Simone. So I've got to cherish what I have, and mourn what I don't have, but do it in away that isn't sooooo harmful to my own conception of self.

I thought the hardest days would be then, I didn't know that the hardest days were ahead. Now I know that you can never know whether they are in front of you or behind you. They are both, they were always both. Can you prepare for them? Not really. But you can accept that having a terrrrrrrible day, isn't the end of the world. For tomorrow maybe less terrible, the day after, perhaps one filled with meaning, peace, or healing (as was this Tuesday when I got Myles birth certificate).

So, I'm not a failure yet. I might have failed here or there in the past, succeeded too, and in the future, I'll add to both tallies. And if I take what my son's life has shown me, and I apply it, then that means I go on. No matter what, I must go on. Because I was given a gift, and it would be a terrible thing to waste. And killing myself would've been throwing that gift in the garbage, perhaps. And that's not fair to anyone. Suicide may not be 'selfish' but it certainly isn't just; to me, or Simone, or Myles, or anyone who loves me. It doesn't do justice to the meaning of my son's life, and that perhaps would've been the biggest tragedy. For if he lives on in our hearts, then a piece of him would've died with me. It wouldn't have been fair to him.

So, I will go on, I will continue becoming, and I will continue to try to find hope in the future, no matter how forlorn I may feel at the moment. For there is still time, time to err, and time to succeed.

Suicide is not selfish

Did I ask to be born? No. So here I am, and sadly I've placed another human being in this predicament and a second (though perhaps he had a choice in the matter, perhaps he made the smart one). I'm not going to feel bad about being indifferent to whether I live or die. Myles died. Life went on. The sun rose and set, fucksgiving and fuckmas came and went. Other children were brought kicking and screaming into this world by no choice of their own. To quote Camus: We get in the habit of living before we ever get in the habit of thinking. And thinking leads us to the absurd and that is: What is called a reason for living is also called an excellent reason for dying.

CAMUS:
We live on the future, "tomorrow," "later on," "when you have made your way," "you will understand when you are old enough." Such irrelevancies are wonderful enough, for, after all, it's a matter of dying.

[ . . . ]
Man admits that the stands at a certain point on on a curve that that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. The revolt of the flesh is absurd. (The myth of sisyphus).

Mania

What the fuck? The fuckers stole my computer after they did a room search. I'm not gonna lie or be ashamed, I tried really hard to kill myself and I was really bummed I didn't succeed (it's like, 'I can't even do THIS right!'). I had my suicide note all written, I just couldn't create anything sharp enough to cut deep enough, so really it was pretty pathetic. I just have about 20 scratches on my left arm. So they made me do 1:1 and that blew cuz I'm a loner and having somebody follow you around all day is really fucking annoying, I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

Now, I don't feel that way today, so please I won't let any of you respond with all the well meaning bullshit about how great I am. Cuz lots of great people kill themselves and in my view, it's their fucking perogative. I. Am. Mine. Sorry. My life.

Blah, blah, blah, I should be telling you how much better I feel and all that jazz, but I feel about the same except fucksgiving is over, a holiday i vow to never celebrate again. So I move to NP this weekend sometime, don't have a phone until then but if you myspace, I'll keep my computer on, and if you want to IM me, I'm at anarchist.mom@live.com. I'll add you and we can hang out before I semi-officially move.

Peace. And I want to do away with Fuckmas this year too, FYI. "Now go make me a turkey pot pie, bitch" - bender.

bipolar I

My therapist finally told me I have bipolar I (with mania), I broke my foot again, and I'm apparently a terrible wife (we are through), mother, and person. Guess I need to 'get with it', and 'toughen up' cuz if life is a test, I'm a fucking failure.


Oh yes, and I totally fucking snuck my computer in cuz these guys are fucking assholes, but I'm too sneaky for them, lol.