The glad game

Darn it.  I really wanted to be blogging about the ridiculous weather, and our awesome Pope (who's living in a hotel!  And just embraced the son of a friend of mine, a boy who has CP!  So much to talk about...)

But I still feel lost in all this.  The "lost" feeling has been making me stare blankly a lot. Anywhere and everywhere I am.  I feel like I'm misplaced... That I should really be somewhere else. It's very similar to the uncomfortable, kinda itchy feeling you have when you go on an errand without your infant for the first time. Feels great to be away and get a break, but you're also antsy. 

I feel that way all the time. Like I really must be going, because its high time to get back.  Except I don't know how to get back, and I don't know where I'm going.

I really miss her. 

There are so many triggers! Hiding under the bathroom sink in the form of a stick with two dark and definitive lines. In the restaurant with the sappy music that would make you cry if you lost an umbrella let alone a baby.  Mailed in a cemetery plot deed that came today.  Discovered in notes your kid was writing:

("That's so sweet... sob...")  Inside the grocery store where--last time you were there--you were morning sick and craving butternut squash. And speaking of food, it is awfully hard to remember that snacking in the middle of the night no longer means I'll be less nauseated later.  Darn this awesome candy, and millions of friends who can actually cook...  And as if on queue, a certain Sarah just dropped off soup and pizza... I'm being so spoiled.  And I will get very fat... oh dear... :)

And I'm having dreams.  Some are really great and helpful.  In one dream, I was crying that I had not set up her coffin better, done more for her burial, something like that.  And then this statuesque, strong, beautiful sixteen year old with brown hair and the kindest blue eyes said, "Mom, are you kidding me?"  With such gentle playfulness, and so sheerly, delightfully alive.  Yep, I dreamt a teenage Perpetua was sassing me.  Heck, I'll let her.  She's seen the Beatific Vision of God... I haven't.  So in some ways, she's older and wiser than me.  Outside of time.  Time here is linear: you have to grow from a baby to a toddler and potty train and all that... not so in Heaven.  C.S. Lewis writes some about that... somewhere.  I mean, why can't she be sixteen if she wants, and then be a baby at night rocked to sleep by angels?  I'm sure there are, oh, a bazillion delightful options available to the citizens of heaven that haven't crossed our one track, 24-7 minds yet. 

Then I had another dream that I woke shaking from: I could hear a baby screaming for help, but could not find her and could not get to her.  After I woke, I reasoned that this fear probably stemmed from the poor animal side of my brain of a mommy that can no longer tend to her young.  I then went back to sleep and dreamt there was an axe-welding contest a bunch of women were entering where the winner would get free breast augmentation surgery.  I can't make that up; thank my crazed subconscious.  No, I'm not even going to try to figure out where that came from... :S

And I'm scared.  I'm supposed to find out results tomorrow at my OB appointment, when I have to go back to the office I first heard the awful news at.  I'm afraid they will find out that--somehow--this could have been prevented, and then I will have to fend off the inevitable guilty feelings, no matter how I didn't "intend" or "try" to do anything to hurt her.  I'm also afraid I will find out nothing at all, or that it could not have been prevented... because then, how could I feel "safe" if there is a "next time"??

Ugh.  Pray for me. 

But there's more to life than death. Thus, it's time to engage in the world's most annoying pastime: the glad game. Hey at the very least, it would make certain family members very happy to know that I tried the technique.  Particularly the ones who keep reminding me that what happened was definitely for the best and that Perpetua being in heaven will prove to be such a blessing to me. (These constant reminders may be entirely accurate, but they are equally unhelpful.)

Anyway: the glad game! From a beloved classic book and movie, you know: "PolluANNa! Come out 'n play!  PollyANNa!" etc.

I can be glad because... :D

• I have been reunited with my one true liquid love: iced coffee. So helpful when you can never seem to get enough sleep, so useful to get more done.
• I'm shrinking, and now fit into real clothes.  Well more slowly than I should be, because there is so much CHOCOLATE around... Hmm.  That's bad and glad, so going ahead... 

• I discovered my misplaced ultrasound pics of Perpetua sucking her thumb. Okay that was sad and glad, so moving on....
• I found a place with zero triggers: Twin River Casino. (Yep, that's what I did last time I got babysitting: gambling.) Running a 2-cent slot while getting pickled in the second-hand smoke of a despondent elderly lady is just about close to perfect right now. So completely non-norm and unfamily friendly. And I doubled my money. 10 to 20 bucks. The rush, my friends. The rush.
• I'm becoming noticeably more agile climbing through the driver's side to get to the passenger's side. Yeah, because the mini van door doesn't work with the dent caused by the guy who spun into me whom the accident report says _I_ hit. Okay that's mad and glad... so moving on.
• I have adorable kids, a caring husband, awesome friends, and an Almighty Father in heaven. That's super.  

"And the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding,

keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."  Philippians 4:7