melancholy

I have been having a tough time the last week and a half. I'm trying to put on a brave face, and to stop and enjoy the (finally) crisp fall air, to notice the breathtakingly red and orange treetops against the clear blue sky. I'm trying to take each day as it comes and focus on the blessings I have today. But it hasn't been working. I have had an overwhelming sense of helplessness and disorientation, a feeling that I am stuck here in this season of melancholy with no way of controlling much of anything.

I haven't been feeling overtly sad about the miscarriage. But it sneaks up on me in little, unexpected ways all the time. From not worrying about an extra cup of coffee or a glass of wine, to finding the baby-bjorn I'd bought the week before the miscarriage. Getting the bill for the D&C in the mail, putting up Jonathan's outgrown 12 month pants in a box with the other clothes we are saving for a future baby. And all of those little pings are building up in my psyche. My subconscious keeps them all stored up until they leak out in weird and disturbing dreams, diffuse bouts of melancholy, sudden teary episodes in the grocery line, or crazy schemes that stem from my desire to find new direction in my life.

I guess this is how grief from loss always goes. You feel absence around every corner, and over time new loves and patterns soften the edges and fill in some of the little holes. But the big ones stick around for a while. I think the only thing to do is to try to keep moving forward. To keep choosing to love and see the present moments for what they are and to dwell in the joyful bits of each day.