Thursday 13 August 2015

How Long is it Okay to be Not Okay?

I thought I was doing okay.

The house is clean, the ironing is (mostly) done.

I get up every morning and get dressed properly - to the point of wearing shoes rather than Ugg boots  even when bumming around the house.

I've been walking almost every day and have managed to increase both my distance and my speed.

I'm 70% towards my goal of walking 42km by Sept 3.

I cook dinner every night. I make small talk with the checkout guys and girls at Coles. I make the bed. The kitchen is clean, the floor swept and the benches wiped, every night.

I talk about Isaac without crying. I've made follow up medical appointments. I've touched base with work to arrange a return date.

I really thought I was doing okay.

But yesterday, for no reason at all, I struggled. Everything seemed to hard. I wanted to scream and cry and rage. I wanted to howl at the moon. I wanted my son so badly my arms ached as much as my heart. And I wept - on and off all afternoon, for no reason at all.

Today was much the same. I feel battered and beaten and heart-broken. I want my son. I want to be pregnant again - to know I can be pregnant again. A family member texted news of their successful twenty week scan and I wept. I am tired of the constant ache in my chest and the blood still trickling from my body.

I'm also acutely aware that it's been four weeks since my son died. The time for public mourning has almost passed - people, while empathetic, have assumed that first raw wave of grief has passed. Everyone seems so eager for me to be okay that I don't know how to admit that I seem to be further from okay than I have been since we first got the news.

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