A New Journey {new blog}

It's only been four months since I've posted here. I can't really say why it's taken me so long. I've been telling myself I've said everything I can say here. Everything I feel/ think/ say now has already been voiced, many many times. I feel like a broken record.

I miss her. I want her back. I wish things had turned out differently.

But honestly, I feel like my journey has changed yet again. This time with a good dose of hope. I am ready to start embracing life, and living. Really living.

I mean I have my bad days. I think I always will, but I think I've slowly slowly s l o w l y started to accept that... this is my life.

That being said, I have always wanted this blog to be all Jenna's. I tried juggling a blog for my design stuff, another for Joseph and this one for Jenna and found out I can design many blogs at once, but I cannot keep up with more than one to my satisfaction.

I know many of you have found my other blogs, but I just thought I would invite you over, just in case.

This new blog is about my new journey. A journey that embraces the beautiful mess she left behind for the world. I think the biggest reason writing this farewell post to this blog has been so tough is because I felt like I was leaving her behind. But it took me some time to realize that the new blog, our new journey is all because of her.

I can't tell you how much I've appreciated every last comment of support over these {almost} past two years here on this blog. Looking back it has been the best support and most healing therapy I could have ever hoped for after losing our daughter. And it will always be a treasure to me, to look back on and remember.

You can find my new blog here.

xoxo

Super broken

I was talking with my husband tonight about stuff. You know the stuff that I can't just bring up on a good day. Actually today was a good day, odd- but still a good day. More on the odd later...

I told him I hide how I really feel most of the time and I'm getting really good at it. I'd say I'm a pro {though it's very possible I'm fooling myself}. I say I'm fantastic but inside I feel broken. Super broken. Shattered. And I miss my first dream like nobody knows.

I told him I get angry at people's stupid comments and would rather just not talk about her than have someone brush off my pain with an insensitive comment like "Well at least she's in a better place." 

Is this true? Yes. 

Does it help? Not a bit these days.

It's the 'moving forward' and 'embracing life' that people want to see, especially after they've witnessed your first smile and had your first normal conversation after her death. Most days I am embracing life {still trying to figure out the whole 'moving on' thing}. But even on those days I'll be caught away in a moment of sublime guilt or intense sadness. 

I missed out on a world. She was my world. She is my world. And when that spills out you realize who can handle your grief and who can't. 

Somedays I can't grasp the reality of Heaven because all I can see is the world she left behind. There are moments when I just can't understand why some babies are born healthy and others have to fight for their every breath. I guess I've lost perspective. I'm lost in this gray area between healing and anger. Aren't I already supposed to be past the "worst" part of this grief? From reading many many {many} other BLM blogs, I realize the "worst" just pops up whenever it feels like it. Uninvited but here nonetheless.

babyland

We went to see her yesterday and like always they were setting up for more funerals. That's just sad. Only this time there were THREE. Boy.

I was meeting hubby up there so in the mean time I drove past baby land. Jenna is not buried in baby land. Sometimes I wish she was, but the baby land at her cemetery is awful. Seriously. It's got a tall fence between the plots and a small power plant. I don't know what the crap they were thinking when they planned to put baby land in that spot.

I got out and walked around baby land. There were several new plots. All of them with tons of balloons, flowers, toys. It just broke my heart and I thought about how each of these represented a world that had fallen to pieces.

Two of the first plots I saw in baby land yesterday had my birthday on them. One of the baby girls had been born, and another had died on that day. Different years. I thought about my life in 2005 and 2006. I had no idea that as I was celebrating my 20th and 21st birthdays someone was saying goodbye to their baby. And the other was welcoming their baby who would only live for less than a year.

I thought about how I've never wanted anything more in my life. I wanted that miracle. I believed I would get it too. I miss her with my whole heart and it hurts with a different ache this time of year.

Reminded

You know things just happen. They come up. And suddenly a whirlwind of possibility sweeps over you and you realize what could have been. All over again. And then I get to asking myself - Haven't I already been here, like a thousand times!? The life that so quickly slipped clean out of your hands. Or maybe it's just me. I like to think I'm not alone.

It happened. I slipped and the whirlwind swept over me like a lead balloon. It makes me crazy how quickly she came and then left. And her visit, as I like to think of it, has made all the difference. It's then that I am reminded not only of what I lost, but to what I am called.

You hear so many things that are meant to comfort a bereaved parent, like "God needed an angel" or "God knows best" or even "she was too precious for this earth". But at the end of the day none of these things fill the gaping hole in your heart.

I do believe God knows best but I don't think he needed her to die. It just happened. Plain and simple. And of all people I got to carry her. She is part of my story and one of the biggest reasons my life is what it is today. I got reminded today of how much a one pound baby changed my world. I owe her everything.

Wordless Wednesday