Wearing My Heart on My Blog

There are days when I begin to think that starting this blog may not have been such a great idea.  Days when I want to remain anonymous and don’t want anyone to know the pain that my heart holds.  Days that I wish I could hide from all the fears that engulf me, escape from the ugly parts of my world as I know it and just view life from my occasional rose-colored glasses.  Sometimes I think that crawling back into my hole might provide me some much needed protection.  An escape of some sorts.   And then I have a moment in which I sit with a group of women innocently filling Easter eggs for a hunt, non whom have read my blog, not a one who knows my heart.  I have unknowingly situated myself right smack in the middle of two women, one who has recently had her second baby, a one-month old, and the other who is pregnant, conveniently sharing a recent due date of mine that I cannot hold on to, but still find myself clinging to some days.  She just found out she is having a girl (a simple reminder that I would have just been finding this out too).  I instantly see just how much I would be showing, just how much I would be glowing.  Deep breath.  The conversation circles about….how exhausting is it juggling two, planning the ideal age difference between your children (ah, the benefits of actually being able to time these things), sleepless nights with a newborn, not being able to nap when you are pregnant with your second, and on and on…  The conversation endlessly weaves in and out of these topics, thrusting me into a tailspin and I can’t seem to regain control.  Tears begin to surface.  I push them back.  My heart is telling my body to get up and leave but my mind is telling me to stay and persevere.  Why didn’t I see this coming?  How could I have not had the foresight to prepare myself for the possibility of this event?   Oh, how I want to put my fingers in my ears.  La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.  I can’t hear you.  Desperately trying to tune them out, get my eggs filled and get the hell out of here.  There are things I want to say, but I am aware of the social inappropriateness of my desired contributions to this conversation.  I mean, I know that I really can’t tell them about the shared due date, my dead babies, my broken heart.  I can’t tell them that I want their blissful ignorance, and their bulging bellies and their sleepless nights (well, maybe not the nights).  I can’t tell them that their stories are only my dreams and aspirations and I don’t know if or when they will be realized.  And, of course, I don’t really want to.  The last thing I want to do is bring these joyful women into my darkness.  I try to spare most pregnant women my truths, someone deserves a happy and fearless pregnancy.  They don’t know my story, and it’s okay that they don’t know my story, they don’t need to.  But I quickly realize that I need my blog, I need to share with others who are willing listeners, I need this outlet, because without it I would have the possibility of enduring more of these experiences of feeling alone.  Sharing my heartaches with others has opened doors to my heart that I didn’t think was possible.  Letting you all in has brought me a peace I didn’t really know existed.  I am so thankful for my sharing space. 

There have definitely been benefits and consequences to publicly telling my story.  There are challenges that present themselves when you wear your heart on your blog.  Challenges that come with putting it all out there and hoping that others truly understand your intentions.  There are fears that come along for the ride.  Fears that others will judge you for what you have to say:  judge that you have said too much, judge that you have said too little or even judge that what you are saying isn’t something worth saying much about.  There are fears that by sharing your story no one will understand or no one will respond or the worst fear of all:  that no one wants to listen to what you have to say.  And if I’m being honest, some of these fears have already been realized.  There have been moments when someone close to me has told me she is “worried about me” and maybe she thinks that I am sharing too much.   But the reality is, it doesn’t matter if I write it here for you to read or keep it trapped in my heart, I feel it just the same.  It exists whether you know it or not.  Putting it out here provides me some opportunity to release some pain, to let it escape a little so that someone else might be able to hold it for me for a bit.   The burden just feels a little lighter when you don’t have to carry it all by yourself.  There have also been moments when others have suggested the possibility that I’m not being completely honest.  That maybe I should be more angry or more sad or more…. something?  But the thing is, I feel I am being completely honest.  I want the entire picture of my emotions to reflect in my tellings, the complexity of my emotions is what makes my story mine, what makes it real to me.  I most definitely feel anger, resentment, jealousy, sadness, disappointment, but this is only one side of my story.  If you know anything about me, you know that I have an eternally hopeful spirit.  My heart is ridiculously resilient.  Even in my darkest of days, there was always a ray of hope shining through, I always looked for a silver lining.  I sometimes found it.  I see this as my saving grace.  Sometimes hope is the only thing that is left.  If I don’t have hope, I’m left with nothing.  So I grab onto hope with all my might and hold on tight and wait for hope to fulfill its promises.  I’m disappointed when it doesn’t, but I never regret holding that hope in the first place.  Hope is a beautiful thing and I’m grateful for the softness that hope brings into my heart.  But don’t mistake my hope for happiness, hope is a path that may take me there, but hope can reside amidst my heartache and pain just the same. 

Aside from these responses, which I know were expressed only out of love and concern, there have also been moments of awkwardness, uncomfortable silences, huge elephants in the room.  In these instances I am often sure that the person I am spending time with has read my blog but they don’t know what to say, and I’m okay with that too.  You don’t have to say anything.  But I also have a friend, who just looked at me when she saw me at the park that day and told me she had been reading my blog but didn’t know what to say and in saying that, she said a lot.  I appreciated the gesture just as much as if she would have said something profound.   I have found so much healing in telling my story.  There has been so much freedom in letting you know who I am and where I have been.  I feel less broken when I have given others the opportunity to reach out to me, to comfort me, to validate that I am indeed not alone in my circumstances.  A friend of Rob’s recently told us that he wants to know how we are feeling but is afraid to ask.  My point exactly.  I feel like I can tell you through this blog how I am feeling and only those that want to know have to listen.  How perfect is that?  It’s almost perfect.  Perfect is when I connect with someone because of this blog, someone I didn’t even know before, and our hearts can become lighter together because we have shared a similar journey.  Perfect is when a friend tells me I am amazing, I am a warrior, I am a hero, all things I know are not true, but I appreciate the understanding and sentiment behind them just the same.  Perfect is being able to have a long needed conversation with a dear friend because she has read my blog and even though our journeys have been different, she realizes that we are not so different after all and our hearts begin to fuse in a simultaneous healing of sorts. 

I know that everyone deals with their heartbreaks in different ways.  I get that and I respect that.  But I don’t understand why we feel we have to keep our heartbreaks completely hidden.  As I reflect on this for a moment, I come to the quick conclusion that people don’t share their heartaches as much as they should because they are fearful of how others will react and respond.  They are afraid of someone rejecting their pain, belittling their heartache, de-emphasizing the magnitude of their loss.  When we as humans experience a loss in our culture, a loss of any kind, there is such a “get over it” mentality that I can’t get over.  What’s the big rush anyway?  What’s the harm in letting someone feel their pain for a minute and why can’t we take the time to try to feel it with them?  People are also afraid of the qualifiers that come with their sharing, the “at leasts” (You know, “at least you can still get pregnant”, “at least you didn’t carry the baby to term”, “at least you can try again”, “at least you didn’t have memories and experiences with that baby”, “at least there’s adoption”).  I’m so over the “at leasts”.  Please understand that the “at leasts” don’t make anyone’s heartache go away, they only cause further heartbreak by downsizing my pain.  I also think people don’t share because they are afraid of the measurement of pain that goes on in our society.  You know that 1 to 10 scale of pain on the wall at the hospital?  Well let me tell you, it doesn’t apply to a broken heart.  We shouldn’t attempt to judge the volume, intensity or magnitude of someone’s grief.  Who has more, who has less?  Who cares?  My pain is my pain and yours is yours.  If it hurts you, I care about it.  That should be the end of that nonsense.  If we stopped for a moment, stopped for a second and listened to someone’s heartache, listened to their pain, instead of judging it, instead of measuring it, instead of qualifying it, I am pretty certain that more sharing would occur and people would begin breaking their silences and healing their hearts at a rapid pace.  And I’m all for this.  Sharing begins healing and let me tell you a little healing goes a long way.  So I encourage you to find your sharing spot.  It doesn’t have to be a blog or a public forum in any way.  It can be in an email, a discussion board, a phone call to someone you know will understand, but make sure your heart finds its path to sharing, be sure you give yourself a chance to begin your healing.  You have a right to your pain, your heartache, your grief.  You have a right to have your story told.  You have a right to be heard.  If you have no where else to turn, let me be your sharing space.  My heart is open to your pain.  Please tell me your story.  I am listening.