Integrating...sorta in 2017

I really want to take Fiona to see the new Beauty and the Beast. The disney original was always tied with Little Mermaid as a favorite of mine growing up. Im not sure Orion would sit through it, so I will have to find time for a MamaDate with her. Last night her cousin A (ten years old) slept over. They watched Sing and had a generally good time, I think. Matt went to visit a friend today, and I had social time last week visiting a friend and newborn BabyM while our bigger kids played. Snippets of our old life. Sort of. It feels a little bit like the movie Coraline, where there is this other world within a wall. And I am Other Mother…not in personality, but just in the fact that I am this altered version of my old self.

(as quite literally 4-5 other topics have sped through my brain while writing that first paragraph)

Social time has proven to be good. The thought of getting out for a playdate was way more suffocating than actually being out. Weeks ago I was afraid to leave my house, and chance an encounter with someone that did not know my baby died. In fact, attempting small talk sounded very punctuated and not quite coherent in my head.

Eight weeks tomorrow.

Conversations are still fuzzy, and I feel like I run out of things to talk about rather quickly. But each attempt to start becoming an active member of society is…..something. I think I still prefer to be around people who already know (versus strangers) and even have a mild preference toward those who have experienced similar. But only because my current abnormalcy seems less……abnormal to them.

The return for added activity seems to be contributing to some anxiety on my end. When we are finally home, or things are finally quiet, Ive lost my cool a couple times. I suppose its a work in progress between figuring out just how much I can balance and move forward in any moment or day.

But Im trying. And Im communicating. And apologizing for my falls. And just taking one day at a time.

Last updated April 12, 2017