I’ve learned some days can be good, and other’s more than bad. That’s life, especially now. But past that, past the good and the bad, I’ve gotten familiar with my days being empty. And feeling empty.

Today was one of those days.

I didn’t necessarily feel bad, but I certainly didn’t feel good either. I just felt, empty.

It wasn’t a random emptiness either. It’s the empty feeling left by the loss of my future. My dreams. My family. My SON. Mostly my son. Completely my son.

And I know I’m certainly not the first person to know this pain. Not even close. And for that I’m thankful. Not that others have lost their children as well, but just for the fact that I’m not alone. Not completely anyways.

But I do feel alone in the sense that most of the couples I know that have lost a child have managed to stay together and go on to have more children. So there’s hope there. Something to look forward too. I thought I had that for a while. Something to look forward too. Hopes for another child, or at least starting to try. We even talked about it, me and his dad. And seemed like maybe we were on the same page. Maybe we weren’t and I just didn’t notice. It doesn’t matter now.

That’s where the empty enters.

I know I’ve referenced Ground Hog’s Day in the past, but even today and speaking on the phone to one of my best fiends,  she pointed out that it really does seem like I’m living like that. Because I am. It’s not by choice. I don’t think anyways. But everyday just seems to be the same. Wake up, work, work out, hang out with Lola, shower, sleep, repeat. It’s a cycle; 5:45 A.M to 11:30 P.M., Monday through Friday. This is my life.

How the hell did this become my life?!

This was never what I wanted for my life. Never what I dreamed for it. I have goals. I had goals. Professionally. Personally. All of it. But now, now it’s enough to get through the next day.

Except it’s really not. Not enough. It’s really empty. Incredibly empty. The deafening silence of emptiness actually. It’s all but consumed me. It just seems like it would be so much easier to just pack it in, ya know? Admit defeat. Give up. But then, I’m not entirely sure what I would even have left to give up? Seriously, I got nothing. Unless you count materialistic shit. I have a lot of that. A lot of shit. A lot of nice shit I suppose. A lot of fancy brands and designer labels. Shit I used to covet, in a sense. Or at least be excited to swipe that Amex for. But now, it’s literally just shit.

Because do you know what I don’t have anymore? A baby crib. And oh, Kam had the most beautiful crib by Sorelle. I was so happy with that. It was flawless. And I don’t have an abundance of diapers, both clean and dirty. Or a freezer full of breast milk since Kamren was exclusively breast-fed and never saw a drop of formula. I don’t have any of the things that are actually worth something. That have value. I’d burn my closet full of designer bags in an instant to have a need for Kam’s diaper bag again. (That was a Petunia Pickelbottom bag, but I got it on sale!)

I’d sell my soul for one more moment with him. Right to the highest bidder, Devil included. And how happily I would do it. I’d probably throw in a few extras for good measure. Even if it was just one more snuggle. One more kiss. One more moment to breathe him in and feel just a little less empty. Just for one moment. To remember what it felt like that have the full happy feeling of love. The sheer happiness felt as my arm would fall asleep holding him until he did the same. Or the 5 A.M feeding that resulted in him dozing back off on my chest. And his contented smile from a fully belly and the warmth of my body up against his. Yep, right to the highest bidder. Everything I own, plus me.

They say the wound is where the light enters. I guess I’m still waiting for that light. Right now, for me, the wound is where the empty enters. And man, there’s a lot of it.

I made the very conscious decision last night to post an incredibly raw and real moment to my Instagram account. It wasn’t for shock value, I’ve never been a big fan of that. And it wasn’t for likes, or comments, or even support. Though of course the support is always so so welcome. It was because I don’t think it’s fair for me to try and share my story, my son’s story, but only show you half of it. I tend to stay away from the messy, the overtly sad, and especially disheartening. There’s a reason for that, specifically on social media sites where I don’t know the majority of my ‘friends’ in real life, or at least real life since high school or early college days.

But, sometimes, and specifically lately, I just feel like my heart can’t be silent. About a lot of things. About everything. Even now, scrolling through my news feed I saw the story regarding a country singer and his wife who just lost their baby girl a week after birth. But most people won’t see this. Or they won’t read it or acknowledge it. And I was guilty of this before losing Kam. Because no one wants to acknowledge that babies die. It’s not natural. It’s not comfortable. It’s not anything that anyone wants to validate. But alas, babies do die. Every single day. More than one a day. More than 100 a day. So why are we so quiet about this? Why do we shout from the rooftops regarding breast cancer, which is survivable. And no, I’m not taking away from any horrible disease. But why are so comfortable talking about things like that, that do have a high survival rate, and we shy away from child loss?

And call me biased, I certainly am. But I will talk about this. I need to talk about this. For myself. And for all of the other mothers who haven’t been able to find their voice yet after they were forced to say goodbye to their child. Forever. Not goodbye for the day, for school, for summer camp. But for always.

So then I thought, this needs to change. To be changed. For me. For my son. For every other parent who has had to said goodbye to their future when they said goodbye to their baby.

That’s when I realized I wanna make a difference
Change other people’s lives, give hope, even for a moment
Use my name for good and change the game, I could.

So last night, I posted the messy. I posted the tears. The redness. The makeup-less. I posted everything that child loss is, summed up into one picture. The response was deafening, in a good way. I think a lot of people just assume you’re doing better because you can function like a ‘normal’ human being again when you’re out in public. Or because you can force a smile, or even sometimes let a real one spread across your lips. And don’t get me wrong, we live for those simple moments. The ones that remind us that there is still hope. But even that’s messy.

Life, love, moving forward, looking back, grieving with hope – it’s all so incredibly messy

“People tell me all the time that they can’t imagine what it’s like to loose a child, so I decided the capture the very raw moment. Of what it’s like. What it is. When your shower becomes your refuge and allows you to break down daily with no judgement given. Just the fresh smell of your body wash mixed with the salt from your tears. Coming together to drown your body in a bittersweet release in preparation for the next day’s coming war. When the tub becomes the safest place to fall to your knees and let go of those guttural cries that could cut steal. The place where the most honest conversations with God are had, and you allow yourself to let the anger and emptiness flow freely. 

-For you it’s just a shower. A means to a clean body. For me it’s the only way left to cleanse my soul, and bleed my spirit.”

It’s a really old city
Stuck between the dead and the living
So I thought to myself,
Sitting on a graveyard shelf
As the echo of heartbeats,
From the ground below my feet
Filled a cemetery
In the center of Queens

I started running the maze of
The names and the dates, some
Older than others the skyscrapers, little tombstone brothers
With Manhattan behind her, three million stunning reminders
Built a cemetery
In the center of Queens

So how do you do it,
With just words and just music,
Capture the feeling that my earth is somebody’s ceiling
Can I deliver in sound
The weight of the ground
Of a cemetery
In the center of Queens

There’s a history through her 
Sent to us as a gift from the future
To show us the proof
More than that, it’s to dare us to move
And to open our eyes and to learn from the sky
From a cemetery
In the center of Queens

It’s odd, you know. That I can so casually comment that I’m leaving the cemetery if someone calls my phone in one of those moments. And hearing the stunned silence from the other end of the line just emphasizes it. But that is normal, at least for me. And certainly for now. That’s the place where I go to visit my son. And remember the all too small casket that holds his now lifeless body.

It didn’t use to be though. Normal, that is.

I guess I’ve never really had an issue with cemeteries. They’ve never scared me or made me uncomfortable. I never got this impending sense of doom. I still don’t. I always find it interesting to navigate through them. And picture the people who now call that ground home.

I wonder what they were like. What they loved. If they loved. It’s so surreal how much history a few acres of land can hold.

My son has called his space home now for almost 4 months. Today makes it officially 5 months since he had to leave, but it took over a month to actually get him buried due to the gross negligence of the hospital where he passed.

Sometimes I wake up and still think that maybe he’ll wake up next to me. It’s worse after I dream of him. Waking up from those moments are the worst. It’s weird though. Even when I dream of him, I know he’s dead. It always seems to happen that he just magically wakes up and I get to take him home, but even in my dream, I know that he’s dead. Sometimes I question it, but typically I’m just so happy that I scoop him up and run away.

I wish it really did work like that. I wish he could just wake back up somehow and come home with me again. No one will ever understand how entirely big and lonely this 700 sq foot condo is now. When he was here there didn’t seem to be enough room for us, but now it just seems larger than life. That’s odd to me.

And I’ve spent the past few months house hunting, trying to find anywhere to get me out of this postwar place. But it’s hard to picture a place and what your family should be doing it in, when you don’t have any part of your family left. Besides the dog anyways. Sometimes I justify that I’m looking for a house to give Lola a nice back yard. These 700 sq feet are probably in fact still too small for her.

But when I see these places, all I see is the loss of both my son and his father. And what my family was supposed to be. And in those moments I’m happy to go back to my little 700. Postwar. Family-less. No room to grow. No room to go. In any direction. Besides the cemetery. Which is where I’m off to now. To mourn the loss of my son. The loss of my family. And the loss of myself.

Not that it’s really anyone’s business, but me and my son’s father made the decision, most amicably, to no longer be together in a romantic sense.

Really I should say, he made it. I asked him too, so I’m not necessarily mad or anything like that. Sad maybe. Sad mostly. But to say this has been a long time coming would be a huge understatement. This honestly probably should’ve happened before we got pregnant with our Kammy, but thank goodness it didn’t since that would’ve meant never knowing him. And what a special little person he was to know.

I’m not going to pretend like I’m happy with the choice that me made, since really I’m not. A little relieved maybe, now that I can honestly say, out loud, that it isn’t going anywhere with him anymore. We aren’t going to be family anymore so than what we already are because of Kamren. Funny thing is, I really thought when I asked him to make the choice wether he wanted a future and family with me, that he would choose me. Even if foolishly, that’s what I wanted. What I’ve always wanted.

His reasons aren’t flawed though. That I know. So I don’t blame him. He’s more emotionally disconnected than me, so he can truly say he knows that he isn’t in a place to give me what I’m looking for, or what I’m needing emotionally. And He’s right. He can’t. He really never could. But still, I’ve always loved him. I probably always will. Even with him not choosing me, and not loving me back.

I think a big part of me isn’t actually sad about loosing him in the romantic sense, since I probably haven’t really had him that way for a very long time, if ever. Really what I’m loosing is him in a sexual way, which still honestly sucks. We may have not been great in any other aspect, but we always got that part right.  But what I am mostly sad about is loosing the option of more children right now. Or full siblings for my Kam. I know that I can always give him more siblings, since any more children that I have will have him as a big brother, but it’s not the same when they won’t have the same daddy. And not to defend Kam’s daddy, but out of all the things he isn’t, he is one of the best father’s I’ve even known in general. So even if he could never really   be the boyfriend or husband that maybe I deserve, he could always be the father my kids do. That’s what I’m having a hard time accepting right now.

Plus, after doing it once, I really never intend on having more children without being married first. I don’t want a happy accident next time. So knowing that, means that I know it will be years before I’m able to physically be a mother again, and thats the worst. On top of that, I just really don’t want to date or be in a relationship in general. I don’t want to worry about anyone else’s feelings or anything like that. I want to be selfish and do what I want to do, for me. But if I choose that route, then I’m just delaying more children even further. It’s a freakin nightmare.

And on top of all of this, this isn’t even something I should be having to think about at 27 years old. But I do. Because my baby died. And that fucking sucks. Even typing it sucks. It almost feels like that entire last year was just this amazing dream, and I made Kamren up in my head. The stretch marks on my stomach however, beg to differ. And I’m reminded that it wasn’t just a sweet dream, turned into a not so beautiful nightmare.

I guess now it’s time to figure out where to take my not so happily ever after from here.

Prince Charming who can deal with an emotionally fucked woman wanted.

So I officially deactivated my Facebook profile the other day.

I know what you’re thinking. How on earth can someone not have a Facebook? What is this, 1992?

In all seriousness though, FB has just become a place of emotional landmines for me. It seems like every other hour someone is either announcing another pregnancy, or posting pics of their freshly pressed baby. And it’s not that I’m not happy for them. Sure I am. Babies are always a blessing, and how wonderful is it for two people to consciously make the choice to expand their family. It’s just that I’m still so incredibly sad for me. And I was just starting to unfollow people who had children the same age as Kam, but with the rate of this baby boom, I’ll soon only be looking at my own Mother’s page. And I would seriously loose my shit if she became pregnant. (Clearly joking here. Insert shocked emoji.)

But especially now, since it was exactly a year and 13 days ago that I found out I was pregnant. So seeing all these pregnancy announcements just puts me in a really bad place emotionally. And I hate going from a perfectly decent day, to being angry with the world because I decided to absentmindedly scroll through my all too familiar news feed.

So for now, I’ve officially left the friend zone. And you know what, I have yet to miss it. My iPhone’s battery has been thanking me for the past 48 hours, and I’ve found a lot more time within my day. Sure, this means I’ll have to find another way to waste away a lot of moments, but that’s a challenge I gladly accept.

(insert two finger peace emoji here)

Signing off – officially

Today, with sweat running down my face and my hair piled messily on top of my head into a loose bun, I was reminded that I am in fact, not unpretty. I know, I know. That’s not actually a real word. But it’s fitting for how I’ve felt these past few months. And quite honestly, I don’t know that I want to apply any other descriptive adjective to myself right now. They seem to change with the wind anyway. So today, unpretty works.

It’s funny how the way you feel about yourself changes once you become a mother. When I first found out I was pregnant, I was hands down in the very best physical shape of my life. I worked hard to get there. I was proud of the time and sweat equity that I put into myself. I was strong. And that made me feel beautiful.

It didn’t make me feel pretty in the sense that I was skinny. Because I wasn’t skinny. I’ll never be skinny. I have these hips that have spread even more since giving birth to my boy. And a butt that is downright obnoxious when it comes to finding jeans that will comfortably fit it and my waist, which is significantly smaller. So skinny wouldn’t ever be descriptive of me. But healthy was. And I was just that. And that made me feel beautiful.

When I was pregnant that feeling of beautiful changed. It was no longer coming from my physical self. It was more of an internal kind of beautiful that came from being genuinely happy. For the first time, maybe ever, I was happy. And I was in love. With both my boy I was growing, and his father. Life was certainly far from perfect, but it was good. And that good translated well with me. Pregnancy translated well with me. I even had that, dare I say, pregnancy glow. It could have also been sweat, since I was carrying around 40 extra pounds in the Florida heat, but either way. That glow/sweat translated well with me too.

And even though my body changed pretty significantly, as most pregnant women’s do, I was still approached by people pretty consistently. Which was both a lovely compliment and a little bit creepy. But it was nice, since even though I felt so incredibly great, I seemed to be all but invisible to my son’s father. Thinking back now, I don’t know that he ever told me I was pretty/beautiful or anything like that when I was carrying his son, or after I had him. It seems odd to think about that now.

But then when I had my Kam I felt this entirely different sense of beautiful. I remember initially seeing a picture that my own Mama took of me my first time getting to hold him. At first I was horrified at seeing my loose, stretched out belly and overly tired eyes. But then I noticed how entirely happy I looked. There was a smile that couldn’t be faked, and a glow that was anything but sweat. I was a new mama, and that showed. That wholly unselfish loved showed. I was finally getting to hold this perfect little miracle that I spent 38 weeks and 2 days carefully crafting. And in that tired, makeup-less moment, I was more beautiful than I ever have been. And that translated well.

And then when I lost my Kamren, I lost all of those feelings of beautiful. I felt ugly. And worse than ugly. I felt like a failure. I hated to look at myself. I hated the feeling of seeing the light in my eyes go out. I felt dead. Every beautiful part of me felt dead. And even with everyone around me, telling me how good I looked 3 weeks postpartum, I felt anything but. I just saw this empty shell of a person that once held my beauty. It’s such an odd feeling. Looking at yourself in the mirror and not recognizing anything about you. Finding your green eyes, that were given to you from your own father, brighter than usual from the endless tears, and feeling entirely unfamiliar with them. I’m not sure what an out of body experience really feels like, but I imagine it’s pretty similar.

This is what most of the past almost 5 months have felt like. Beautiful not being an adjective that would fit appropriately into my own self image.

Except today. Today was different. Today I woke up and I felt different. Not better. Not less sad, but just different. I shuffled to my Kuerig, half asleep, and let the smell of fresh brewed Gevalia perk me up enough to get Lola outside. And I knew that today I had to go back to the gym for real. And not to just do my yoga. But to really sweat. And to push myself through one of my old workouts.

And so I did. I pushed, and I felt good. I remembered the strength I once knew feeling the sweat drip down my face and onto my collarbone. It’s an odd high that reminded me why I began chasing it a few years back. God, how’ve I’ve missed that feeling. That must have translated well, because on my way out and incredibly handsome man approached me to introduce himself. He oddly looked like a better version of Ray Allen, I know, like there is such a thing. But if you know me, you know how much I love that man and the fluidity of his shot. So hearing how I was able to gain his attention when I walked in, and keep it for the next hour and half, reminded me that even now, post war, I am still not unpretty. And I may not be able to keep this feeling for long, but today, that feeling was enough. So today, that feeling is exactly what is.

Wake up in a new day, but it don’t feel that new
Same faces around me with the same point of view
Everything is perfect, everything’s okay
Just swallow the lies and let your emotions fade
But my heart won’t be quiet, I feel a change

I can’t describe how frustrating, and at times, infuriating it can be for people to attempt to label you and stick you in this stupid little box based on how they think that you should feel, be, live, etc. And after you’ve lost the most important thing in life to you, whether that be a person, or something else entirely, it can start to become borderline offensive.

Don’t get me wrong, most people mean well. Or at least I can say that in my own personal situation. People really do seem to have the best of intentions, but most times, intentions just don’t translate. Not well anyways. And especially comparisons about how maybe you’ve handled a situation that you feel may be similar. One, because I don’t care how you handled you, since I’m me. Two, because to make it perfectly clear again and again, if you haven’t lost your child, there is no situation similar. Not one. At all. Anywhere.

And I don’t want nor am I looking for special treatment of any kind, in any part of my life. That’s not what this is about.

I just want to be given the time, space, and available energy to breathe. And to not be questioned as to why I still need to breathe. I don’t want advice on to what you think I should be doing with myself and my life. You can’t give me that. Unless of course, you’re one of the amazing women that I’ve been lucky enough to connect with through all of this. If you’re her, then your advice and opinion is always welcome, even if I don’t take it. It’s nice to know the different options available to navigate this life.

What I do want and need, is to be given the time and space to figure out where I want to take my life, from here. Because even though I may be 27 and 5 years into my career, my life is literally starting over again. Ground zero. I’m there. Maybe it’s not where I dreamed I’d be at year 5, but I’m proud of the fact that I can get my feet to touch the ground each morning to get back to here.

What I don’t want, is to be questioned as to why I don’t want to go out on Saturday night, or get wastey faced anymore. That was fun for me about 2 years ago. Not now. And just like I don’t judge you for still needing to do that well into your 30’s, I don’t need you to judge the fact that I don’t want to do that at 27. That’s not what I want for my life. I don’t get enjoyment out of that. And not for nothing, but I should be at home with a four month old on a Saturday night. Playing peek-a-boo, and sipping on mommy juice, aka, my 6th cup of coffee for the day.

But mostly, what I really want is to stop being asked how one day I can seem so ‘normal,’ as if that’s actually a thing, and how other days I’m just eternally sad. Get over it. And not for me, get over it for you. This is how I am. This is who I am. This is me. And some days are just better than others. Some days are even, dare I say, good. So let me have my good days, and don’t question that. And give me back my bad ones. It has nothing to do with you. I’m not taking anything out on you personally. I promise. I’m just doing what feels right for me.

I’m the one that got this life. I won’t even say stuck with it, because that just sounds too negative for me. But, I’m the one with a life that I never would have chosen for myself. This life that was chosen for me, not by me. So I’m going to do the only thing I know how to do, and trust in the one that knows that I can actually handle this life. The one that gave this life to me. And trust that he knows that I will do more than survive this life. I will thrive within it. Just give me the chance to figure out how, and I’ll show you. I promise. I won’t let you down.

Wake up to a new voice telling me where to go
It sounds like I got no choice but to keep on this road
Got my own opinion, my own words to say
Got my own visions, so I know I can’t stay
There’s no looking back now, I feel a change

Wake up, wake up
Gotta get this paper, get this cake up
Gotta do my hair, gotta put on make-up
Gotta act like I care about this fake stuff
Straight up, What a waste of my day

Most days I sit here, baffled as to why I even come to work anymore. I honestly don’t see the point, besides the fact that there are still bills to pay. So begrudgingly, I sit at this desk and stare at these computer screens.

But shouldn’t I get a break from life for a while? Shouldn’t I have time to get back to myself, without having to worry about my credit score going down the drain or being evicted from my suddenly too empty condo? Why should I have to sit here and continue to deal with the politics of corporate America, when most days it takes everything in me to not verbally make everyone else feel for a moment, what I live through every single second. And especially the ones that just complain about their life and their extremely insignificant problems. Why would you even think it would be appropriate to come to me with your non-issues. News flash. IDGAF. Or in the words of Big Sean, IDFWU, so I don’t care. At all. Not even a little.

And as understanding as I am, and as much as I try to remember that everyone has a struggle that most people don’t know anything about, I honestly cannot understand how you think that your annoying boyfriend forgetting to take the trash out, or even sleeping with the skeez next door, can come close to us having to bury our son. I don’t care to know about your petty relationship struggles, when me and my son’s father have to navigate life after death. Forget about us even having the time to worry about what that turns the relationship between us into. Not Good, in case you’re wondering.

So then I try to remind myself that life is all about the balance. And there are a lot of things that can break your heart. A lot of things that are going to break your heart. Life itself is going to do it at least one time throughout your life, and if it’s only once, then count yourself lucky. I’m not sure that there’s any worse of a heart break than losing your child though, since I’m not sure you’re really capable of full, all encompassing, true love until you give birth to the one that love belongs too. Or watch your partner give birth to them. So that’s a heartbreak of wholly different proportions. But even then, there’s still balance to that too.

But being here at this desk today, watching more people than I can count walking around with their babies still tucked away safely in their bellies, just creates this thick sense of anger. Or bitterness. That feeling never seems to go away fully. Even on the good days when I can push it as far back as possible. And today, during one of the rougher than usual days, I just want to escape somewhere deep within my own soul. This is when I should be able to do that. But I can’t. Because I sit. Here at this desk, yet again.

Kamren Grey –

I will never be able to put into words just how entirely you’ve filled this heart of mine, and brought my very lost soul back to the surface. I’m eternally grateful that you chose me to be your Mama. I wear that title proudly with every single breath I take. 

I still remember the moment that I found out you existed. I remember being terrified. I never imagined the day when I would see those two pink lines show up so quickly. But I immediately rubbed my lower belly, and I told you that I choose you. In that moment, I chose you to be my life and my future. That hasn’t changed. Not even a little. You are my future now more than ever. Every single decision I’ve made since I first heard your heartbeat, and even more after hearing your last, is to ensure that I earn the right to see you again. I’m not entirely sure how long I have to wait to do that, but I will never give up. I will never stop loving you. And mostly, I will never stop being your Mama. 

I love you with every single piece of my soul Bubbie. To Heaven and back. 

-Mommy ❤ xx