Beliefs & letting go

Wow...it's been a while, eh?

So, October was SIDS awareness month, and October 15th was specifically the national day of recognition for pregnancy & infant loss. We went to a couple of candle-lighting ceremonies, and while I can appreciate the thought and the meaning behind them, it just didn't feel like it did the moment or the recognition justice.

At one of them, I listened to a woman who'd had an abortion when she was younger talk to another woman who'd lost her infant son about finding peace and forgiveness and just remembering that Christ was there to take all of us in his arms and hold us close and love us and bring us comfort.

Really??

Are you kidding me??

Don't get me wrong, I do consider myself a Christian, as devout as I've ever been. I still believe in God the Creator...I'm just not really on speaking terms with Him right now. Since we lost Baby Will, I've heard 2 different takes on the situation. I've heard people say that it was part of God's will, and I've heard people say it was an accident. I feel there are good and bad things about both.

On the side of it being part of God's will, the pro is that there is/was a larger purpose for it. There's a reason why it happened, and it was meant to be. The con side is what kind of a loving God would have that in His great plan? What kind of a loving God would deem it meant to be for parents to lose their child?

On the side of it being an accident & not part of God's great plan, the pro side is that it wasn't part of some greater plan, and it wasn't the work of a loving God. Of course, the con side of that is that if it wasn't part of a greater plan, what's the meaning behind it? Why did it happen?

Obviously, I'm still dealing with some anger issues...

I spoke to a close friend of mine this past weekend who's been a little MIA through this whole thing. Not to the point of not being supportive, but just having his own thing going on. He admitted, during our conversation, that one of the main reasons he'd been MIA is because he'd had no idea of what to say, any advice to give or any words of comfort to offer. And it made me think...those people who I feel haven't been supportive of all of this, the ones who seem to shy away from talking about it or mentioning it at all...maybe it's not that they don't care. Maybe it's because they were so terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing, they just didn't say or do anything. And I get that, but getting that blurs the lines of where my anger is focused. It would be so much simpler to have been able to continue the separation in my mind of the people who were wonderful and supportive and the people who weren't. And without that, a place to focus my anger and feelings of betrayal kind of disappears. And I don't know that I'm ready for it to be gone yet.

I've started watching One Tree Hill lately, catching up from season 1. I'm a little bit in lust with Chad Michael Murray, and since his stint on Gilmore Girls was short-lived, I've moved on to his next show. At the end of season 2, there's a voiceover quote that says: "And Hansel said to Gretel: Let us drop these bread crumbs so that together we can find our way home. Because losing our way would be the most cruel of things. This year I lost my way. And losing your way on a journey is unfortunate. But losing your reason for the journey...is a fate more cruel. The journey lasted eight months. Sometimes I traveled alone. Sometimes there were others who took the wheel...and took my heart. But when the destination was reached, it wasn't me who'd arrived. It wasn't me at all. And once you lose yourself, you have two choices: Find the person you used to be or lose that person completely. Because sometimes you have to step outside of the person you’ve been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you wanted to be. The person you are."

I've been trying and trying and reaching to hold on to the person I was before all this happened...to not lose myself. But the reality is that I will never be that person again. Too much has happened, and I can't go back. It took me 28 years to get to the point where I was anywhere close to being comfortable in my own skin, being comfortable with who I am. And, now I feel like I have to get to know that person all over again. I feel like I spend so much time trying to take care of myself and focusing on myself that I don't really have the energy to focus on others and what's going on with them...at least, not the way I did before. But maybe that's what it's going to take, at least for a while, to become comfortable in my own skin and to know myself again.