Finding My Way Back

I’m here.

I realize I haven’t posted in several months.  Every few weeks I start a post and then it falls to the wayside.  I’ve had every intention of “staying on it.”  But for awhile there staying on it = additional stress and fatigue.  Guess what?  It’s not worth it.

A childhood best friend passed away at the end of February.  It wasn’t a complete shock, meaning I had known about her diagnosis/prognosis for several months.  As much as one might think you can prepare yourself for such a moment, well, you can’t.  Her passing knocked me down, hard, and on so many levels.  She has two young babes around the same age as mine and for days I couldn’t even look at my own children without crying.  I felt pain for so many reasons and so many different people.  I thought about her laugh and the fact that none of us would ever get to hear it again (seriously, no one has a laugh like Janice, and I mean that in the best possible way).  There were so many reasons to be sad.

I’ve experienced grief before, but in a kind of way where I didn’t fully allow myself to be completely immersed in it.  I would dip a toe and then quickly pull back.  It’s not a difficult thing to run from.  It’s hard to embrace.

This time I didn’t even have a choice.  It held me down and kept me in its grip and there was nothing I could do to tear myself away.  I’m thankful, now, that this was the case, even though in the moment it was huge and overwhelming and oh-so-exhausting (did I mention Vinny was working in L.A. while all this went down?  A true test of grit if there ever was one). 

Since Janice passed, there have been so many things to write about.  So.  Many.  Things.  Writing is always my go-to escape, my way of making sense of my world.  And by extension, sharing my ramblings helps to keep things real, grounded.

So after several weeks I began to feel guilty and depressed that I wasn’t writing, keeping up with the blog, just generally pouring my thoughts/experiences/feelings out onto the page.  Even if it was just for my own eyes to read later. 

I tried to push myself to write, dammit!  You know how to do this.  You must do this.  It’s what you do. 

But there were no words.  Only tears.  Only sadness.  Only that empty feeling you have when someone is missing and you forgot what a big part of your life they were until they are gone. 

And so I sat with all that.  I meditated.  I cried.  I stretched.  I cried.  I doodled.  I cried.  Then I cried some more.  I stopped thinking about whatever it was I was supposed to be doing.  If I never wrote another blog post again, fine.  If I never explained what happened to me the last few months, fine.

Mostly, I’m not doing either of those things right now, even though it kinda looks like I am.  My experience of grief, what it felt like and continues to mean to me, is still too close to share in intimate detail.  My body is still so raw, though now I can walk past a blooming plant and smile with pleasure instead of dissolving into tears, or listen to some of my favorite (albeit sad) songs without immediately turning into a snotty mess. 

It doesn’t mean the grief is gone.  It’s merely giving me breaks now… escaping my body in more measured (and manageable) bits.  I still have moments that overtake me so sharply I can barely breathe, as though I need a reminder that yes, she is still gone, lest I forget.  Like I could.

So I am slowly finding my way back.  In fact, I have been more slowly everything lately.  Savoring moments with the kids, especially the tedious ones, the ones we tend to overlook because taking care of kids can so often feel like a monotonous routine.  I have never been more grateful to participate in a monotonous child-care routine.  More grateful to be healthy and mobile and aware and able to live my life.  More grateful to be awake.  To everything. 

Snuggle Your Snoogle

My husband hates my Snoogle pillow.

Early in my first pregnancy it became apparent that I do not sleep well while pregnant. Initially I chalked it up to the thrill and excitement of being pregnant. My mind was constantly swirling with a thousand disparate thoughts. How could anyone rest with so much going on in their brain? After a few weeks of this, though, I was sleep-deprived, stiff, sore, and getting increasingly cranky. Did I mention I was also writing my Master's thesis during this time?

What is a pregnant girl to do? I started to research natural sleep remedies. Warm milk, a hot shower or bath, exercise, meditation, no screens of any kind a few hours before bed, some pleasant reading. I tried it all and none of it did a damn bit of good.

When I complained to anyone that would listen about the unfairness of not being able to sleep when I was so clearly exhausted, I was generally met with this response: "It's good practice for when the baby comes."

I’m sorry, practice? Does anyone need to practice NOT sleeping? As though over time you'll simply "get better" at it? So that way, when the baby actually comes I'll already be so sleep-deprived that I'll be half out of my mind?

This didn't make any sense to me, and I'll admit, I had to restrain myself from lashing out when I received this stock response. Now I say it to others, but always in a mocking, there's-no-way-they-don't-know-I'm-kidding tone.

Part of the problem was that I couldn't get comfortable in bed. My hips in particular would get so stiff that I would wake and need to flip over about every hour or so during the night. This was in addition to the other two+ times I needed to get up and pee. So at best, I was managing maybe an hour-and-a-half of sleep at a stretch. Yes, perhaps this would be my nighttime schedule once the baby came. But that babe was still safely tucked into my belly and I wanted to savor every moment of sleep I could get until the day he arrived.

I started to look at pregnancy pillows online. Let me say now, I am not one for having a thousand pillows on or near my bed, nor do I sleep with more than one pillow, ever. So the thought of more pillows seemed silly, but I was getting desperate.

Then I stumbled upon it: The Snoogle Total Body Pillow. Stupid name, yes, but there were so many glowing reviews on the Babies R Us website that I had to restrain myself from immediately jumping in the car and driving to the nearest store to buy it. Could I really spend $50 on a pillow?

As I continued through the reviews, moved to tears by the miracles it was working with all these other pregnant women, I knew I had found my solution. This pillow was going to give me the best damn night of sleep I had had in four months, and that was worth $50. It was worth double that if I slept for six to eight hours straight as some women claimed to do with the Snoogle.

This is what happens when I'm pregnant: I'm like an infomercial customer to the extreme. You tell me your product is awesome and I am going to buy it. Why? I'm tired, I'm cranky, I’m emotional-as-hell, and worst of all: I believe you.

So off I went to buy my newest favorite thing in the world. When my husband got home from work and saw the pillow unfurled on the bed, taking up the space of an additional person in our already cramped full size bed, he looked doubtful.

"Really?" he asked.

And I nodded. Oh yes, this was going to fix everything.

I went to bed that night ready to be dazzled.

And dazzled I (mostly) was.

Did I sleep six to eight hours straight? No, but I clocked a three hour stretch, my best in weeks. Even better, I didn't need to flip as often during the night, and awoke with my hips feeling only mildly stiff.

Was the Snoogle worth every last penny? Over time, yes.

I never slept a six to eight hour stretch, ever, during my entire pregnancy. After awhile, I stopped letting this frustrate me as much, and learned to be thankful for the stretches I was getting. I realized that perhaps this was the way life was going to be, for a long time, and instead of fighting it every step of the way, I should give in and catch cat naps when I could during the day.

Either way, I loved my Snoogle pillow. It did help, although during summer nights in L.A., it did make for some very hot, uncomfortable sleep. It also forced my husband into a corner of the bed and drove him nuts. He complained he couldn't cuddle me with that barrier between us (a valid complaint; one I shared). He'd lift the end of the pillow, pretending it was a snake, and attack me with it. He longed for the day I could pack it away.

That day didn't come until about two months after I gave birth to Eli. With my c-section incision painful for several weeks, I still needed the extra support at night. When the big day came, it felt good to get that Snoogle-Monster out of our bed.

I knew when I got pregnant the second time around that my husband would grumble when I got the Snoogle pillow out. I held out as long as possible before tossing it onto the bed one night, about 15 weeks into my pregnancy.

"I need it," was all I said.

"I know," was all he said.

And he hasn't made one remark since. Did I mention that I love my Snoogle AND my husband?