Some things I do

One of the only things I seem to be able to achieve with any regularity at present is the churning through of popular TV programs. As I didn't even have a television before I moved in with Leslie, I never suspected my life would come to this, but I guess that is true in so many ways.

I am the type of person who tends to develop obsessions with things. Lots of people reading this will be nodding along in bemused agreement, I'm sure. This is true of TV shows, too, especially in the age of on demand viewing which means you can watch an entire series whenever and wherever you want. At the moment, my interest has been curiously piqued by Big Love, although I think I'm a bit slow to have gotten onto it. Essentially, it is about mormons and polygamy. It's fascinating, and for some reason reminds me a lot of Desperate Housewives - something about the streetscape, and the secrecy, and the power plays between the wives, although in this case they are all the wives of one man.

Contrary to last few blog entries, which have been mired in grief and sadness, there are some things that cheer me up, if only temporarily. Modern Family, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation are all guaranteed to get a giggle out of me, no matter how dark my mood, so Leslie usually uses this to his advantage. He has been known to bookmark my favourite scenes and play them when I'm in a bad mood, which always annoys me as no one who is in a bad mood ever wants to be cheered up, do they? It does work though. Damn it, it works.

I mention these TV shows because I've been trying to keep track of what I do with myself when I'm not missing Max, or rather, whilst I'm missing Max, which would be the better description. I've done nothing of any real value for eight months now. Actually, even more than that, as I was so sick and useless for the five months I was pregnant that this time was also a bit of a write-off. It's hard for me to sit with this level of inactivity. I'm used to being busy. I'm used to achieving things. I have to remind myself there are things I have achieved - I've gone back to work part time, I've written a lot, I've read a lot. It's just that those things don't seem to count on my internal ledger. I don't afford them as much value as I should. And so, each day, I reprimand myself for not doing 'enough', except I don't really know what 'enough' is, and I'm so confused about what to do from here that I can't seem to move in any direction at all.

There's no Plan B for when your baby dies. This is one of the hardest practical aspects to deal with as you go forward afterwards. What now? I had not started maternity leave when Max was born so early. Thankfully I work in a school and the long summer holidays started the following week. I had from 24th November - 1st February off, after which I returned as if nothing had ever happened. As if it had all been a dream; all the preparations, all the hope. It was the cruellest thing. I was back where I started. No, I was much further back than that. I had no baby, and no hope of a baby, and no plans for the future. I slotted right back in. Or, I did on the surface. Everyone treated me the same as they ever did, which is not a criticism, or a complaint that they treated me badly, it's just that I was different, I was broken, and it felt like no one noticed or acted accordingly. I'm not sure what I expected. It's not that I wanted everyone to stand sombrely and dab their eyes while I made a procession back into the building, but then again, maybe I did. I wanted to know the world had changed. But of course it hadn't. It was just my world. No one else's. Just mine. That's when the loneliness sets in; when you realise that your baby died and no one else's world has tumbled from its axis. No one knows him, no one mourns him, except for you. I've had to work with numerous new staff members who don't even know I was pregnant or that I had a baby. How can that be? How can my beautiful baby, and the tragedy of his death, so quickly have become old news?

And you mourn for yourself as well as for your beloved baby in the months afterwards. There's all the knowledge of death, disability and suffering you can't un-know. There's the hope and happiness and innocence of pregnancy that's been snatched away, never to return. You miss the vitality and interest in things that you used to have as you drag yourself around as if you weigh 100kg more than you used to. There's the extreme sensitivity that means you must prepare yourself to be jolted, offended, upset and pissed off by the smallest of words or happenings, every time you leave the house. You find it hard to like people anymore. You can't listen, attentively and sympathetically, as you used to, and sometimes you realise you don't even care to - that you wouldn't mind if you never again had to open your mouth to a single human soul. There's suffering and sadness and desperation in grief, but there's also just boredom and apathy and fatigue. I didn't know that before - that after it's wrung you out it just wears you down.

Yes, I'm sick of being sad. There, I said it. But I don't feel I have a right to be. I feel that the sadness is mine to wear as a badge in Max's honour; that I'm shirking my responsibilities if I shed it or pay it less attention. I also feel that if I dare make plans for the future, no matter how small and insignificant, that the 'universe' is going to step in and make a big ugly mockery of them. I feel my name is some kind of hellish database which will light up with a warning message to its operator that says 'SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN! whenever I have a wish or plan. Yes, I believe that no wish of mine will ever again come true. I believe that nothing again will ever go right. Because how on earth could it? How can anything on earth go right, when so much has gone wrong? It seems a statistical impossibility. Yes, I feel marked alright. Marked with the sign of death and disappointment.

I hope you won't mind if I start recording some of the banal staff I do during the day on this blog. I need some kind of written evidence that I'm not just passively sitting and watching the world go by as much as I feel like I am. So here goes:

Today I started Pilates. I have some weird marathon runner's injury in my leg, even though the only time I'd ever break into a run is if I were running for my life. The Pilates is supposed to complement the physio treatment I'm receiving, but also help me to build strength so that those muscles aren't working in overdrive anymore. It's also supposed to be a good practice to implement during pregnancy, though I feel stupid for saying that, for daring to make a plan that might benefit me in some kind of unimaginable future. I found out during the assessment session that I have no core strength. Like, so little that I couldn't even isolate the muscles she was telling me about. 'What muscle? And where?' I kept saying. I honestly thought she was making them up at times. I don't necessarily feel bad about this, as I know I'm unfit, but it does make me wonder if any of us are aware of just how physically deficient we are! When she told me this, my mind went straight here: I have no core strength, my body is weak, I could not hold my baby in, Max died because I was not fit, I was not strong. It is all my fault.

And so, I will go back, I will do something good for myself, even if it is for that reason alone. Because there I go hoping. . . hoping for a brighter future and at the same time utterly disbelieving in the possibility. . .