Quantum Leap

I have this pressure gauge in my head that I want out. I don't feel like I ever get to feel any emotion completely. Whenever a really strong emotion comes on it quickly dissipates leaving me feeling all this pressure building up. I don't know how to let it out. I've only really cried once since we lost the baby. My eyes have swelled up at times but then that valve kicks in stopping any real outburst before it can happen. What may sound like a coping mechanism has taken on a life of it's own. I can't cope because I can't release all of this emotion. I want it out! I want to stop dwelling on it! The one time I did cry was triggered by an argument between my wife and I. The next day I felt a lot better and she felt worse. This is no solution. The last thing I want is for her to suffer in order for me to feel better but there is noone else who can pull that much emotion out of me because I don't care that much about anyone else. An argument with a friend wouldn't cause me to emote like that and I learned to tune out my family long ago.

I was thinking a little while ago about the quantum physics theory of multiple dimensions. I believe it was proposed by Hughe Everett. The basic principle is that anything that can happen does happen in some dimension and every time there is an event with multiple possible outcomes a new dimension is created. That led me to think that there is some dimension where I have a baby. In some other reality I am a happy father with a 9 month old baby dughter that I get to see every day. For almost a second I found that comforting until the thought came, 'WHY THE HELL AM I IN THIS REALITY AND NOT THE OTHER ONE!' Just one more thing to be angry about I suppose. Now I'm back to the one emotion that I know how to express.

Sometimes The Apple Rolls Back Towards the Tree

I've always been afraid of ending up like my father. I know that there is nothing unique in that. When I was a little kid he would play with us and take us sledding. I even remember him dancing around the living room to the opening theme of "Looney Tunes." As I got older his addictions got the best of him. He became angry and paranoid. The littlest things set him off. Not all the time. If it was all the time I would have been able to predict it and deal with it. The truth is that you never knew what was going to set him off so I was always on my toes. When I found out that I was going to be a dad I became even more determined to not be like him. Now that I'm sitting here in grief I find myself acting like my father. My temper is short many days but not all. I don't enjoy things like I used to. Most of the time I just want to be alone. I used to want make other people happy and now I just want them to stop being such jerks. My father's negativity toward people has lost him his marriage and his career. He's an unhappy person who wears his regrets on his face. I don't want to go down that road but I see myself taking those steps. For some reason I can't find the strength to turn even though I can see disaster ahead.

Maybe I Don't Deserve To Be A Dad

I wish I was a better person. I'm tired of trying to be a better person. I'm tired of wishing I was a better person. Bad things keep happening to me and in the back of my mind I feel like I deserve it. The mistakes that I make every day in my life somehow justify the bad things that keep happening. I'm unhappy so it must be because of bad decisions that I've made. I'm always trying to do the right thing and the responsible thing but things haven't ended up any better for me than people who don't. I just want to give up. I try so hard to please other people but in the end it doesn't help. The reality is that there are very few people who like me. So why do I try so hard?

I'm Back!!

I haven't written anything in a while because I was starting to feel pretty good for a while there. I really wanted to believe that it was going to last and that I wouldn't find myself back in the darkness staring at that screen. That would have been nice. I don't know how to define OK anymore. Is OK when I'm not thinking about the fact that I've lost the opportunity to be a father and do all of the other things that I watch so many guys take for granted as a dad? Or is it when I can think about it and not get really pissed of and want to put my hand through a wall? There are days lately that I feel like I'm doing good and things are just rolling off of me until someone pushes that one button. That one button at work seems to be when people complain to me about prices. I am a manager of one store in a chain. I have absolutely no control over the pricing of items and yes I know that Walmart is cheaper than us. We are talking about Walmart. They aren't known for their high prices. What do they expect me to say? They don't want me to explain and I certainly am not going to apologize. I didn't do it. Where do they expect this conversation to go? I give what I think is a reasonable answer and they end up just staring at me. I just want to scream back, "I can't just lower a price and keep my job so GO AWAY!" Instead I just say, "Let me know if you need anything else," and I end up in the back room kicking some empty boxes. That's when I know that I'm still not back to normal. I used to be laid back. I miss that.

The Dark Can Be Lonely When We're Together

Today my wife told me that she's been depressed lately thinking about the baby.  I sat with her on the couch and listened but in my head I was thinking thank god!  I don't know if it's because I was relieved that I'm not alone of if because I could tell she's been down and now she's opening up again to me.  Recently I've seen her acting down but I couldn't get her to tell me what was wrong.  That's so frustrating for me because I hate to feel shut out.  Part of that is my fault.  I know that at times I do the typical male thing and try to fix problems when all she wants me to do is listen.  Now I think she doesn't want to tell me about what's bothering her unless there is a possible solution or some new information.  The reality is that I do want to know what's going on or I fear the worst.  I think at times men just need to be told, "I need to talk and I don't want you to try to fix it or give me advice."  I don't seem to know when it's that kind of conversation until I've already upset her by throwing my thoughts at her.  I don't like that I do that. It's just a compulsion.  I told her that she can always talk to me even though she may think it will bring me down.  I hope she does.  Sitting in the dark can be lonely if we don't talk.

It All Feels Pointless

Everything just feels pointless. I work my ass off at my job but I don't feel like it matters. Best case scenario, I make more money. So what. I don't have a family to support. My wife makes enough to support herself if she needs to. I make enough to live in a decent place and buy the things I want to buy. As I thought about my life and the direction I was going there was always a family in the plan. Now what? Do I just go on like this forever. What meaning is there to my life if I don't have anyone to remember me. Now I just feel like I'm going through the motions everyday. I remember when I felt present and that was enough for me. I could wake up and just enjoy the day. Now I'm constantly aware of what is missing from each day. Even the good days don't seem to be enough.

I've been in a little better mood lately. It may just be because of the better weather or perhaps I just needed a little distance from all of those bad memories of March. No matter what it is it still isn't enough to make me forget. When my wife and I were out shopping today I had another baby staring at me. This happens a lot. In fact it happens so much that people who know me have mentioned it. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's the way I look at them. Most people get this look of excitement when they see a baby that I'm sure they become accustomed to. The look on my face may be different and perhaps puzzling. I don't know. Seeing babies is still hard for me. I wish it wasn't. I have to be ready to spend time with my new niece in July. I don't want it to make me sad. That would not be fair to my brother and his wife not to mention my niece.

One Heck of a Bobmshell

My wife doesn't want to have kids. That's what she said last night anyway. We haven't talked about it much after losing the baby. She's scared to get pregnant again and that I knew. This conversation was different. What she actually said was that the last few days she has been thinking about it. This surprised her because for the past year she's been thinking that she doesn't want kids. Then she added that she's probably just feeling that way because her period is starting and she's emotional. Her statement was so matter of fact that I didn't know how to respond. I do want to have kids and I didn't know that she had already decided that she didn't want to try again. We tried for several years before she actually got pregnant and now she acts like she's given up. I would feel better if she didn't sound so rational when she said it as if it was a logical position. It makes me think feeling of maybe wanting kids is going to pass. It worries me that I didn't already know this. Major events in a person's life will change them. Know I'm starting to worry that this is changing us in different directions. I've been working out more, meditating, watching what I eat and anything else I can do to exert some control over my life. She has been partying more, searching for a full time teaching job less and focusing on anything fun. I'm acting like an old man and she's acting like college student. I hope we both find our ways back to the middle.

The Squeeky Wheel

I remember sitting in that dark room staring at the monitor for the ultrasound. This was the second time that we had done this. During the ultrasound the technician said, "Huh." My eyebrows lifted as I tried to figure out what the concern was but she just went on working. Then came another, "Huh." This time she typed some notes into the computer. "What's wrong?" I asked a moment before my wife could get it out. "Nothings wrong," she said with a strange emphasis on the word wrong. I recognized this emphasis because it's the same one I would use when my wife asks if something she cooked was bad. "Not bad.....just not as good as usual." (I love her to death but she has truly butchered some meals.) After the ultrasound was over and she was getting an exam from the doctor we mentioned something about it. He shrugged it off as no big deal. This being our first pregnancy we didn't want to come off as worrying irrationally so we didn't push it any harder.

A few couple weeks later my wife's water broke. We still aren't sure what that was about. Perhaps it was nothing but can't help but feel guilty. Maybe if I pushed harder for answers or made them look harder this wouldn't have happened. I wanted to believe that there was nothing to worry about and now I don't have a baby. Maybe I should have worried. I hate that my fear of seeming irrational won over my fear of something going wrong over the pregnancy. Later we were told by another doctor that it would have been treated differently if it was a high risk pregnancy. High risk pregnancies would be ones where the mothers had health issues, drug abuse or two previous miscarriages. Why can't all pregnancies be treated as high risk? This was just another procedure to them but it was the world to me. That sounded to me like saying I don't lock my door because I haven't been robbed enough times. Perhaps if I had been the squeaky wheel I could have gotten us more care and they would have caught something.

I Feel Violent Today

I feel violent today. It's a side of myself that I hate. When I was in my early twenties I could go out to a bar and find myself in what I thought was the right side of a fight. That's a little tougher now that I'm in my thirties. Today I went in the back room at work and just started punching empty boxes. To be completely accurate all but one was empty. There was one that I just thought was empty. It turned out that there were glass bowls inside. My knuckles are still red. There aren't too many socially acceptable times to be violent. I'm still waiting for the random mugging by a guy with just a knife or to walk into a robbery in progress but so far no luck. It feels like I have a huge amount of rage to get out of my system. Deep down I know that it won't go away by punching but it's the only thing that seems to fit. I don't really want to hurt anyone. I really wish that I could hang my punching bag up in this apartment. We do have a garage so perhaps now that it's getting warmer I'll buy a stand.

I Wish I Had Someone To Blame

It seems that there is always a new type of reminder to endure. Perhaps when I get through all of them I'll be able to just be myself. Last night I went to an Applebee's at the request of a friend that is an assistant manager there. All I needed to do was sit there at the bar and make sure that the bartender was ringing up every drink she served. The manager thought that was giving free beers to friends when they weren't looking. Easy enough. The problem came for me when I overheard the conversation of the three ladies to my right. They were all nursing students who were in their final stages of their education and were working in hospitals along with nurses. Then they started to talk about babies at the hospital. The detail of their conversation brought back far too many bad images. I tried to ignore it but Wednesday isn't exactly a busy night at the bar. I sat there alone just listening. After a few minutes I could feel that familiar anger coming back. This time I was angry at myself. Why can't I just let go. I know I'll never forget but really small things pull be back into the darkness and I'm tired of it. There are worse things that have happened to people than this. These girls were just having a conversation about their jobs like anyone would when out with friends. Why did I start to hate them? It was just for a split second but I could feel it starting. They didn't do anything to me. I guess I wish I had someone to blame. Now I have all of this hate and anger without a target.

Trnsformed For Nothing

When my wife told me that I was going to be a father I was thrilled. We had been trying for a while and it seemed almost unreal to hear that she was finally pregnant. Then I freaked out. I am not usually one to worry about the stereotypical gender roles but the need to become a good provider was overwhelming. Generally I discount the evolutionary argument for behavior but I couldn't help but think that this was hard wired into me. That week I became more assertive with the vice president of our company looking for answers about the promotion that she had been dangling in front of me for a year. I also started cutting expenses like I was throwing water out of a sinking ship. My whole outlook changed. It was amazing how strong those feelings were. Now what? I opened up a large space in my life and now it just sits empty. I feel empty.

Laying In The Bed I Made.

I'm sitting here at the computer because I feel like I have to get something off my chest. The problem is I'm not sure what that it. My mind will go too many places at once. It's hard to push it out in any single stream of thought. I have a lot of thoughts that I really don't want. For example, I'm angry at religious people. This doesn't make any logical sense. I don't believe in God. I never really have. Since I don't believe in God I don't have anyone to be angry at for this random act of nature. So I suppose I've become angry at all religious people as a substitute. Let me add that the hospital that we went to was a catholic hospital. When we found out that the death of the baby was eminent we had to wait for an "ethics committee" to decide if they could induce. 5 days of wondering what would happen while people discuss our situation based on their beliefs and not ours. Then the day of the delivery we had nurses pushing us toward decisions based on their beliefs and not ours. Oh and lets not forget that when we finally were able to pick up the pictures a few weeks later then we were told that they'd be ready, we had to go to the chapel to pick them up.

About a month ago an ex-employee of mine invited me to a wild game dinner at his church. I knew that I might have some issues but I appreciated the invitation. He usually goes with his father but his father but due to a major heart attack his father couldn't go. I went. It was no surprise that there was going to be a sermon involved. I don't believe in God but I do agree with the more universal moral points of Christianity so I didn't think it would bother me. What I didn't expect was the whole thing being about the miracle of childbirth with an in depth play by play of the birth of each of his three children. If I did believe in God this would have put a damper on our relationship.

The other thing that I'm preoccupied by is the fact that my wife is out with her best friend tonight. I still worry about losing her and being all alone. Maybe it's just that for the other shoe to drop feeling that many of you may know. To make things worse it was that friend that my wife was out with the night she cheated on me. It was our first year of marriage but I didn't find out about it for another year. She slept with a guy that she knew but didn't even like. This is another pain that I've been thinking about a lot lately no matter how much I don't want to. It was a long time ago and neither of us are the same people we were back then. I don't have any logical reason to believe that she would cheat on me again. For some reason dealing with the loss of our baby has brought this back to the front of my mind. Every time she goes out with friends I go to that dark place. Why can't things just be simple? The funny thing is that I know worrying about this makes me act like a person that I don't want to be and I can't help but worry that it's also a person that she won't want to be with. I wish I could just let go of all of this anger.

My eyes started to water as I wrote that last part. I wish I could actually cry. Why can't I cry?

Oops!

I've mentioned before that I'm worried about losing control of my anger. This past Sunday I did. Not violently. I just said something to a customer that I would normally never say. She was complaining to me about our prices and wouldn't let me get a word in. Then my mouth opened and out came, "Then don't shop here." Naturally this didn't diffuse the situation. I've been teaching people to run retail stores for 10 years now and I don't ever remember including that in the lesson. I know the lady was being extremely rude by the supportive comments I received from other customers after she left but it isn't like me to not have control over what comes out of my mouth. The next morning I called my boss to tell him what happens in case she calls in a complaint. He just laughed. Then he told me that he thought it was going to be worse by how upset I seemed about it. When I started the conversation with him I said that I said something I shouldn't have to a customer. I guess that made him think that I cussed somebody out. Nothing happened from all this but I didn't sleep at all Sunday night.

What I don't get is why am I so obsessed with self control. People make mistakes all of the time but when I do I feel like something horrible is going to happen. I can't help but think that this past year has shown me how little I can control in the world so I just want to keep a grasp on what I can. I gave up on trying to control other people years ago so that just leaves myself. Now I'm so distracted and moody all the time that I don't feel like I can control me either. Man I feel screwed up! I just want to get up, go to work, spend time with my wife and go to bed. Why does all of this other stuff have to get in the way of just having a normal day?

The Numbness Is Back!!

The numbness is back! I guess that would be something to be excited about if that wasn't contradictory. I'm not feeling good. I'm just relieved to not be feeling bad. Most of the time I just feel lonely. My wife and I have schedules that are sporadic and never seem to match up so I just spend a lot of time alone. I read. I meditate. I pretend that this is a chosen lifestyle. In reality this existence is a jail that I have created with bricks of sarcasm. My defense mechanisms have always kept everyone at arms length. Now that my defenses are down there's no one trying to get in. It was easier when I thought I was just too busy to have friends. Looking back I'm not even sure how that's supposed to make sense. If you're reading this and thinking, "How does this relate to losing a baby?" EVERYTHING I FEEL IS ALTERED BY THIS STUPID GRIEF THAT I CAN"T ESCAPE! I never used to care that I was alone because people let me down in the past. That sounds trite and cliche but that's how psychology works. There is a field of psychology because none of us are as unique as we think. The past year has shown me how prone I am to the textbook examples of grief. Awareness of the psychosis has done no good in preventing them. Honestly I can't decide if I like numb or angry better. At least when I was angry I worked out more.

Ring a bell and I'll salivate.

I had to go to the doctor yesturday. I wonder if there will ever be a time when I can go to the doctor without thinking of the loss of our baby. Since the visit was for an injury to my anckle I went to a clinic near work. In the middle of the afternoon it was mostly mothers with their children and that's the part that got me. Too many images at once between the waiting room and the babies it was just too much. Once I got in to see the doctor I was fine. Since this time I was the patient it didn't feel the same. The next time I need to bring my wife to the doctor I know it will be harder.

Any human being who has suffered a loss like this has been through a horrible experience and I don't mean to discount that for anyone. Keep in mind for this next part that these are my dark grumblings. There is one part of this experience that I think is is worse than if I already had another child. Everything that relates to babies in any way shape or form reminds me of the loss we suffered a year ago. I have no positive associations to balance things out. Now that my brother has another baby and I'm constantly being sent pictures and videas I would like to be happy about it. Of course there is a large part of me that is but I feal a bit like little Albert and Watson keeps handing me that rat.

Can I be angry now?

Last night my wife went out with friends. No big deal because I had to get up early today to go to work so we wouldn't of had much time together. The only problem is when I lie in bed alone it gives me far too much time to think. Around two o'clock I finally fell asleep only to be awaken at about 3:30 by my wife coming home. Let me be clear. She didn't just clumsily wake me up getting into bed. She decided to turn the overhead light on in the kitchen which in our apartment shines straight into the bedroom. Then she was banging dishes around, throwing things in the microwave to make a snack, slamming the microwave door closed and of course she had lo let that beeper go off on the microwave even though she was right next to it and could have stopped it early. I have to get up in a few hours and she's traipsing around like it's the middle of the afternoon. I was so pissed off that when she finally came to bed I pretended to be asleep because I knew it was either silence or I was going to go off.

Here's the problem. I have been so pissed off lately at everything that even though I think I am justified this time I can't tell anymore. My ability to gauge when I'm being irrationally angry is busted so I don't react at all out of fear of overreacting. I can't tell anymore. Last week on my day off my wife was working that night. Usually she gets home at about 8:45 pm so I planned dinner for about that time. I made lamb with a balsamic reduction sauce, spinach salad and a baked Alfredo pasta that I improvised with a toasted breadcrumb and Parmesan topping. She walked in at about 10:00 pm without any mention of being late. I sat there for an hour like an abandoned housewife watching dinner shrivel up and she doesn't even say sorry I'm late. When I was visibly upset while pulling the dried pieces of meat out of the oven she said that they had customers stay late and she couldn't get out any earlier. My response was, "Usually you call when you're going to be late." She snidely said, "Oh, so it's my fault for not calling?" Needless to say that turned into a fight. She was so shocked at my reaction that I started to wonder if I was over reacting. I hate that I can't tell. Why can't I just be angry without first having to stop to think if it's a rational anger? That kinda takes the steam out of my argument.

Ladies and gentleman we have a winner.

I have a fiend who is going through this same ordeal. Her loss is far more recent than mine and yet she has been a great support for me as I reached this aniversary of sorts. When my wife and I first lost our baby I shut down. Not visibly but emotionally. I mean, people around me thought that I was dealing with it well when in fact I wasn't dealing with it at all. I fealt like I was always playing a part when I was around other people and eventually that became exhausting. So eventually I just stopped hanging around other people. It's easy to look around and say that noone was there for me but that wouldn't be true. I wasn't there. My wife pushed me to get on facebook to connect with people because she was concerned that I spent too much time alone. I didn't see a problem so immediately I was offended. In my mind this was just her picking at faults that she saw in me and some sort of evidence that she didn't like me as much as I thought she did. I never said it was rational. Eventually I took her advice if for any reason but to avoid any future conversations on the subject, or at least that's easier to admit than the possibility that she might be right. I set a profile and immediately I got a friend request from my best friend in high school whom I hadn't spoken to in years. I still haven't. After I sent him a message I got no response. This is connecting with people? Soon I got a message from an acquaintance from school. After a couple of messages she told me that she had lost a baby and we've been e-mailing each other ever since. In fact she's the one who encouraged me to start this blog. It's inspiring to me how much she's facing her grief head on. It's a rough road that I wish I wouldn't have avoided so much in the beginning. It hurts me to know how much she's hurting but I know she'll come out OK.

Wow I've gotten way off the subject of what I was going to say. In a couple of those early emails we were talking about the stupid things people say to someone who is grieving. For example, "God has a plan." Translation: God wanted your baby to die. Or there's, "I know what your're going through." Ummnnn...... No you don't. You have had a loss, sure, and it hurt; but that doesn't mean you know what I'm going through. The worst I ever got was when both of my grandfathers passed a few weeks apart. One of my employees said to me, "They say bad things happen in threes." HELLO? I'm only up to two you idiot. That one was so dumn that I just walked away. Well now we have a winner. My wife waitresses at night and last night one of her coworkers wanted her to go out after work. She of course said no because the significance of the date lead her to want to be home with me. After her friend kept pushing she told her why she didn't want to go. It was something to the effect of, "Today is one year from the day we lost the baby." Her friend said, "I know what you mean. I still get sad on the date that my bird died." Feal free to go back over that line to make sure you read it right. That's right, I said BIRD. It's universally stupid to follow a child story with a pet story but a dead bird compared to a dead baby.

I'm used to fixing problems. Whether we're talking about home or work, I'm the one who people turn to for solutions. I can't fix this. There's nothing to fix. That is so rediculously frustrating for me. When I see my wife feeling down I can only offer a shoulder but that doesn't actually solve the problem. I still feel like I'm waiting for something to hapeen that will make everything better.

I don't know what I was expecting when I woke up this morning. I started out in a pretty good mood. It's not like I was going to wake up and Pennywise the clown from IT was going to be standing over me with a baloon saying, "Today's the day!" I made my self breakfast, watched some TV, then I went out tto have a cigar at a cigar shop I hang out at from time to time. That's when it hit me. All of the guys were complaining about work or how their bracket is doing and all I could think was, 'I DON'T CRARE! I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CARE!' I really just wanted to talk about what happened and what I'm going through. Nothing else really seemed to keep my attention anyway. So how do you work that into a conversation! "Hey, guess what." No I don't think that would be a good segway. So I just sat there pretending to be social. I feel like I do a lot of that. One year ago today we lost our baby. Nothing will be the same. The whole wolrd will go on as though nothing happened but I have changed forever. For those of you who are suffering from a more recent loss there is good news. I was doing much better up until a month ago. As this day approached it became harder and harder not to think about but I had a good steatch fo a while there. I suspect that I will again.

My story.........Block........Delete

I sat down tonight to write and I started to write a detailed account of what happened that day. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the birth and death of our so it seemed appropriate to write it all down. After getting about half way through I realized that I was writing with all the emotion of meeting notes sticking strictly to Roberts Rules of Order. Here's what I really want to know. Why in the hell were we put into the same wing as all of the other mothers that just gave birth. I understand for the delivery but not once we were transferred to another room for the night. All night I stared ad posters of babies on the wall and heard babies crying in other rooms. It was torture. It's bad enough that the nurses made us stay even though the doctor said it wasn't necessary. The nurses said we had to talk to the social worker before we left and then conveniently the social worker was gone for the day after a couple of hours of waiting. The verbally disagreed with the doctor so I really do feel that this was a trick. At this point let me point out that we weren't as far along as many of the other blogs that I've seen. It was only 16 weeks. Too late for the baby to come out without being induced but too early for her to have a chance. The part about it that's the hardest is when they put the baby in my arms before I was sure if I was ready for that. The image of a dead body that is so underdeveloped is more disturbing than I can describe. That image will be locked in my head till I die. In case I ever did forget, they gave us pictures as a reminder.

I was dreading work today because I knew I was feeling emotional. I don't manage my people with emotion. I feel it clouds decisions too much and keeps people from learning. When I walked in the door my fear came true. On my day off yesterday all sorts of things went wrong that I had to answer to with my boss. Days like this used to be a breeze. I know the answers. I know what steps I need to take. Most importantly I know how to handle my boss.......usually. Today I almost cried while counseling an employee. I shut down when talking to my boss. There just wasn't enough strength in me. The one thing I am proud of is that I maintained my conviction. My boss was out for blood over ten missing dollars. I told him that a policy wasn't followed because I haven't been enforcing it consistently and if he was going to document anyone it should be me. Naturally now that hew would have to be the one to swing the hammer and not me he backed down. It was a small victory but on a day like today I'll take it.

Hah! Trump!

I find myself going shopping a lot and not finding anything to buy. Then I'll go to the kitchen to find a snack and nothing looks good so I go back to my sofa where I flip through channels finding nothing I want to watch. The truth is that I don't want any of those things. I want to be a dad. There is just this whole that nothing can fill becase it was left by a baby that died. I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen but I don't know what. Everything just feels incomplete. I have so much that I want to get off my chest but every medium to do so is too slow to get it all out before my defense mechanisms kick in.
I've been thinking a lot lately about why I get so angry. It seems ironic to me because losing the baby made all of my other problems seem so small. I've come up with two main reasons. First of all, I feel like because of what happened that I just don't want to be bothered with all of this stupid day to day crap. I'm trying to direct all of my energy toward just keeping it together so I don't have the time to worry about your stupid little deadline that half of my colleagues are going to miss anyway. I run a retail store not a nuclear missle silo so if I let the ball drop every once in a while who freak'n cares. On the flip side if one of my employees mess up I completely feel like it was a malicious act designed to irritate me. That makes perfect sense right? The other reason I get angry so easily is all of the people who act like they are having the worst day ever died. I can't help but want to say, "Oh yea. whacha got?" Then when they gripe about bad traffic and getting handed the wrong drink at Starbucks I can say, "Hah! My baby died before I even got to meet it! Trump card! I win!" It's kind of funny that I walk around all day feeling pissed off because of all of these people looking pissed off.

I don't want to be sad. I know that it's supposed to be normal so perhaps I don't want to be normal. I just want to forget. When I feel depressed I then get angry at myself for being depressed. It's just a distraction that has no benefit. After a year of trying to deal with this I don't feel like the sadness has gained me anything so I would rather just be done with it. My wife seems to be dealing with it so much better than I am. As a matter of fact it seems that she is suprised by how bad I feel all of the sudden. I didn't give myself time to really hurt in the beginning because I didn't want her to be down. I especially didn't want to be the one to bring her down. Now I find myself not able to think about anything else.

Why do we read about each others suffering? Does it help us to feel more normal or perhaps just not so alone. I wish I had someone to really talk to about this before but that wasn't the case. I was never really one to lean on other people and I guess that was all too clear to others. Now that I need people there is no support system. I never let anyone think that I needed it and now I wish I wasn't so damn convincing. I dodn't have a good job for grieving. As a manager of a busy retail store I have to be really nice to customers and positive with employees. My bad mood can affect too many people so I always feel like I have to have that face on. It's really exhausting when Aall you really want to do is be alone and shut everyone elso out. I hate that about myself. I know deep down that I don't have a support network because I pushed tham all away. I've always been too independant to let my family know I need anything and to be perfectly frank I'm just not good at making friends. I always feel like I'm imposing on people. I don't want to be too much of a jerk or too clingy. I just don't feel comfortable with other people. God I'm messed up. This would be simpler if I was just losing with losing a baby but recently I've been thinking of all the bad things that have happened too me. Now that I look back the list looks much larger than I realized. I guess I at this point I should be glad that I'm still moving.

In six days it will be one year from when my wife and I lost our baby. My friends and family would say it was the day that my wife lost her baby. It seems that people seem to forget that I lost something too. I remember calling my dad to tell him what happened. He said he was sorry and then he changed the subject. Let me go over that again. He said a quick I'm sorry and then he CHANGED THE SUBJECT! When I told my "best friend" he didn't know what to say. He invited me to go out a couple of weeks later then he didn't call me for six months. When people who knew decided to ask me about it they would ask how my wife was doing. Um......hello? Did anyone happen to notice that I'm hurting too. Why doesn't anyone ask me how I'm doing. As a guy I guess I'm not supposed to hurt. Nobody wants to ask me how I'm doing because I'm not supposed to express any emotion but anger. Well I have good news then. I have anger in abundance. I feel as though I'm sitting in the dark while watching a movie of my wife being induced. People talk to me and I'm aware that they are there but my eyes are on the screen. My wife is next to me and I know she's watching the same thing. We can talk about it but the movie is still there and we're both watching it. There is a room around me but the screen fills my perception. When I get up to go to work or to pretend that I care about being social it gives no more of a break then going to the kitchen for a refill of pop. The image of my dead baby's body is so etched in my brain that I can't fully focus on anything. However the screen is blurry. I can't seem to fully focus on the image no matter how hard I try. So I just sit in the darkness.
If you are reading this blog to find some glimmer of hope or a path to find a light at the end of the tunnel then I'm sorry. This would be another futile example of the blind leading the blind. Don't get me wrong, there are good days. Some days I wake up and feel normal but that's a very fragile state. The moment I realize that I feel normal it reminds me that I didn't the day before. That realization is enough to bring me right down again because it reminds me of why I was down yesturday. So again I'm sorry if you were looking for something a little more upbeat but I'm writing this from the darkness. I don't see myself taking the time to write on the good days. I have far to much to do in those brief moments of focus.
If you have had a similar experience then I truly am sorry for your loss. This experience is so horibble that I would do it 100 times a day if it could keep anyone else from going through the same thing. Ironically the things that I'm most angry about are the things that people did with good intentions. The doctors who breezed over our questions because they didn't want to worry us. The nurses who pushed the Catholic hospital's views on us without asking what our beliefs were. Let's not forget all of the people who assumed that I would want to be left alone. Now here I am a year later still being left alone. Everyone else assumes that I'm back to normal because I've gotten better at pretending. So where's my Oscar.