Down

If there is one thing I've learned in the past few years, it's that emotions cycle.  Grief is not linear.  LIFE is not linear.  I've noticed one small pattern, that I hope won't remain a forever pattern, and knowing life, it probably won't, but my head gets stuck sometimes.  In the fall of 2010, I was doing well.  I had hope for the first time in a long time, and was feeling more confident and at peace.  And then I crashed.  Hard!  January-March of 2011 were SO low.  At first, I attributed it to my childrens' father having come to visit, but then my "low" stayed low for so much longer after.  Eventually, I picked myself up.  Counselling probably helped.  Maybe spring helped.  I don't know.  I can't remember how I got out of it.

Last fall, 2011, I was also doing great.  Feeling high.  Feeling GOOD about my life and where I was at, knowing God had/has it all under control.

And now, I've crashed again.  Some of it was due to specific things, which I will not mention here.  The specifics are not important.  But January was tough.  February has been tough.  I feel sad.  I feel lost.  I feel lonely.  I feel jealous of happily married people.  I feel jealous of people who have the money to go on trips and holidays with their kids, and I have to say no to my son, who wants a $5 flashlight at Canadian Tire.  I'm feeling that life is extraordinarily unfair.  The people who do wrong, the people who mistreat others, get to have some fancy life, with not a care in the world.  The faithful ones, the ones who do the right thing, get squat.

Ugh.   I hate feeling jealous.  Of all the feelings, that is one of the worst.  It gets me nowhere.  It drags me down further than I already am.  It freezes me and makes me not want to do or accomplish anything.  In the past few days, I've been jealous of people having babies.  Not even the having babies part (although that makes me jealous sometimes, too), but the having a supportive partner part.  I see photos on Facebook of friends who have had babies and their partner and the father of their baby is cuddling them and staring blissfully at his new baby and the beautiful woman who just birthed his child.

I feel gipped.  The end of my pregnancy with Rory made me strong and resilient.  Her birth was incredible and I knew God's power and love in it.  But I got gipped.  The one person who was supposed to love me and Rory most on this earth had completely rejected us.  The one who was supposed to be part of that magical night was off creating a new life for himself.  Such an injustice.  I can't even quite express how my heart hurts in this regard.  Birth is highly sacred to me.  It is one of the most vulnerable times in a woman's life.  It is essential for her to have 100% support during pregnancy and birth.  Why didn't I have it?  I know, in my head, that HE was the reason.  I know it wasn't something unlovable in me.  I know it was all his brokenness. But that doesn't make the ache any less.  That doesn't give me the words to say when my daughter asks me someday why her daddy wasn't at her birth.  And that was MY choice.  He wanted to be there.  He wanted to be there for his own satisfaction, not for MY support, which is why I said he couldn't be.  But will Rory understand that?  Children are intricately connected to their parents, whether their parents are good or not.  Will she understand my point of view without feeling like I took something from HER, the chance for her own dad to be at her birth?

I want a re-do.  I want my pregnancy back, with a loving, supportive husband.  I want the birth experience I should have had, with my partner lovingly supporting me.  I want to have shared the past 2.5 years of this beautiful little girl with someone.  I'll never have it.  I'll never know it.  And I'm sick of being jealous of those who DO have it.  I'm sick of being jealous of women who have husbands who love them and show it.  I'm sick of being jealous of intact families.  I'm sick of being jealous when I see fathers with their sons and daughters.  And I'm sick of all of this!  I'm tired of being a solo mum.  I'm tired of the worry that my boys will not have a positive male role model in their daily lives and that my daughter will grow up feeling less than worthy because of her father's rejection.  I hate that they don't have a man to take them sledding, take them to the park, teach them to ride their bikes, and just generally do stuff that dads do.

I'm tired of being jealous of people who can afford sports for their kids.  I'm tired of being jealous of people who can afford skating and skiing, and music lessons and instruments, and experiences.  I don't want to live with this in my heart.

I'm so tired of being alone.  My parents provide a lot.  They babysit, they have us over, but I'm ultimately, alone.  I have no one to share the little moments with.  I cannot express the deep longing and loss that I cannot share the every-day kid stuff with anyone.  Watching kids grow, raising kids, is something that was designed to be shared.  And it's heavy on my heart that I do it alone.  Even the good times!  When we are laughing, or Rory says something funny, or Silas learns something new, or Ethan has a cool story to tell, it's just me.  My grief over being the ONLY person to hear and experience these things is great.

I've long since stopped grieving Colin.  He is nothing to me.  And the marriage.  I don't really grieve that a lot, either.  I grieve this every-day stuff; that I have no one to share these kids with.  That I have no one to share my life with.  It's just hard.

It's just really hard.

I hope I cycle out of this soon.  I don't like this place.

God, remind me of the victory I have in Jesus Christ today.  And ease the pain in my heart.  It's too big.  But it's not too big for you.  Renew my strength.