Absent Friends

....I guess that is what my husband and I now are...or are our friends the Absent Friends? Friends that once filled every day of our lives and now they are gone.  It's not through their choice, it's all our doing...well my doing if I am perfectly honest. You see, there are just some friends I can't see. Not won't. Can't. It's too hard. Too painful. I'm finding it hard enough to stay standing as it is, to withstand the storm of grief which still whirls around me. If I add anything else to the mix I'll topple over. I'm not strong enough to stay upright. I haven't been able to ground feet back into the earth just yet.

It's not an easy situation. I have seen some friends and I usually have a lovely time when I do. But the friends I have seen are the ones without babies, or ones that have older babies. I can cope with that. It's the other friends that are the problem. The ones with the new babies or the ones who are pregnant. They don't symbolise friendship anymore, to me they are just a giant flashing beacon of everything we had and have lost.

I honestly don't know what to do about it. This can't go on indefinitely or we'll lose them from our lives forever.  Out of everyone I am most worried about our best friends (if they would even call us that now). I've written about them before in previous posts - they had a baby boy five weeks after we lost William. It's not their fault. They've done nothing wrong. But their little boy and their family life is what we'd dreamed of, hoped and prayed for, and it's what was taken away from us.

I've tried to keep in touch with the wife over email, to share what has been going on in my life and ask after hers, but it has been hard. I feel I have to ask after her little boy but in reality I don't want to hear anything about him. I know he will be utterly gorgeous but to hear any real details about him would be like sticking a knife in my heart. I think my friend senses that and so she hardly ever mentions him, even when I ask, but it must be hard - after all, he is the most important person in her life now and she can't share that with me anymore.

In recent weeks the emails have subsided. She suggested meeting, without the baby, but I was just not ready. I said I wasn't sure and that I needed to build up to it and she suggested that sometimes things are worse in our minds than they turn out to be in reality. She asked how it has been when I've seen other friends. I didn't know what to say and I felt like she was pushing me. I couldn't be honest, couldn't say that it has been ok seeing some other friends....ok because they don't have a baby boy who is five weeks younger than mine should be. So instead  I just turned and legged it in the other way.  I haven't emailed her since.

I feel like I am losing her and it makes me very sad. She is such a lovely person and I know her little boy will be wonderful. But it's hard. Things have changed. I have changed. It will never be the same again. She has what I have lost and I don't know if I can spend my life watching her little boy grow up when I had to leave mine in the hospital.  I wonder if she thinks I have had long enough - it's been 7 months - does she think I should be over this by now? Does she think I should be capable of seeing her or her little boy by now? Does she think I have had enough time to grieve? 

I don't know the answer. All I know is I haven't had long enough. I am not ready. It is too painful. And whilst I hope I will get there one day, my biggest fear is that she might not wait for me and I will have lost her forever.

Just a quick note about....Jeans

I didn't put on that much weight whilst pregnant but after having William I was a long way off being able to get back into my normal clothes. I definitely didn't want to wear maternity clothes anymore.  The idea of wearing clothes meant for a mother-to-be when my baby had just died made me feel sick.  Unfortunately I didn't fit into anything else and so this made my sorry situation seem all the more depressing.

I didn't want to go shopping. I didn't want to go out in public. I couldn't be bothered to try on clothes. But, I had nothing to wear so I didn't have much choice. So off my husband and I trotted to a department store to try and find me some jeans. I had to try on about 15 pairs but I did manage to find a pair that fitted me and for the first time in quite some time I actually felt pretty good.

I was in a normal pair of jeans and, most importantly, NOT maternity jeans. They fitted. They actually looked nice. And I felt like me. Not entirely the old me. But a little bit more like me.

So, to anyone who has gone through this, I would tell you to go buy yourself some really great jeans. I know it may seem stupid, I know you don't feel like it, but as silly as it sounds, when you find a pair that fits, it will make you feel a little bit better. And at times like these, we have to try and find those little moments every chance we can get.

Keeping My Game Face On

....is so exhausting.  At the shops, on the tube, at work, in the doctors, walking down the street. To anyone else looking at me I look normal. They would never guess that I have lost a baby. At first glance they wouldn't see just how devastated I am inside.

I guess I could walk around with tears running down my face, bearing my soul to all but they would probably think I was a nuts and I am sure it would make everyone else feel more than a little uncomfortable. So, the Game Face is required. The one that smiles at the man in Starbucks when he's taking your order, the one that doesn't flinch when stood next to a mother with a pram in the queue, the one that makes the world think "She's ok".

I'm now back at work 3.5 days a week and so the Game Face is required more so than ever.  I cannot cry in front of people in my office. It's a law firm. A big corporate, male dominated law firm. Crying would be seen as weakness. Not that I really care if they think I am weak, but if I want to keep my job and my clients and for people to believe I am still capable of doing this job, then the Game Face has to stay on.

It is so draining and when I first started back at work, I would walk in through my door at the end of the day and burst into tears. It was like a massive emotional release of all of the emotions I have had to keep in check throughout the day. Emotions that build and build and build and build until I am safely in the comfort of my own home...and then they all come rushing out.

Problem is that sometimes you just can't keep that Game Face on. It can slip. It does slip. It's happened to me twice this week at work. First, I saw on facebook that another friend had had her baby, then today a colleague called me to tell me his wife is expecting. On both occasions it was just too much and I couldn't control the tears.  Thankfully, on both occasions I made it to the staff toilet and managed to cry my eyes out silently, in the privacy of my own cubicle.  I don't know if anyone realised but my blood shot eyes were a pretty good giveaway to those who saw me on the way back to my desk.

This Game Face thing is just one big act and it is so tiring. I wonder if it will always be this way. Is my life destined to be just one massive play with me as the central character, acting out a "normal' person's life? Will one day I really feel happy again, not always on the brink of tears, not carrying around this heavy weight of grief? I really and truly hope that one day I will feel happy again and my Game Face will not longer be required.... because I am not sure I can keep this act up forever.