Tears and Fears

I've been thinking a lot about what should have been lately...I guess it's just this time of year but it always gets me down.

Reason #1 is that Friday will be the fifth anniversary of the day my grandfather killed himself. He took one of his hunting riffles, went down by the Big Blue River in Manhattan and propped the gun up on the bumper of his truck to help him pull the trigger. According to the sheriffs office he didn't get it done the first time, so he had to shoot himself again. This year will be especially hard because it was a Friday that day he did it. I'm not telling you this to have you feel sorry for me, I just am giving you this knowledge to help you understand where my post is going today. After five years I am pretty numb to it. The only thing that really gets me is when I see people kill themselves on TV, or talk about suicide like it's no big deal and it's the best answer to a problem. If only people could know just how much it can rip a family apart and I really feel the person killing themselves gets the easy end of the deal. It's everyone else left behind that has the hard part of trying to move past the hurt, the betrayal, the guilt, the loneliness...

Reason #2 is that the baby we would have had would be a month old. I can't help but still feel guilty about the miscarriage...like I could/should have done something differently...if only I didn't drink that cup of coffee, if only I didn't get stressed about state assessments at school...It's just been hard because a couple babies have recently come into my life that are around the same age as what our baby would be. Every time I look at those babies it is a constant reminder of the baby that we lost. Every milestone those babies have are milestones we will never share with our child. Yes, eventually we will have a child of our own, and while that will ease the pain some, I know it will never fully go away. There will always be a little piece of my heart that will always wonder what they would have been like, if they would have looked like me or Jeff, who they would have been...I am not trying to diminish the happiness of these new families which is why I haven't said anything to them...I am not trying to take anything away from the joy they are feeling, but their joy is my secret misery...Not to mention that I feel guilty for feeling the way I do. Deep down this is my Achilles heel, the thing that always drops me to my knees, and in a way, I feel like it shouldn't still bother me, like I should be able to handle little things like a birth announcement in the mail...and maybe someday I will be able to handle it, but not right at the moment.

Reason #3 is that state assessments are coming up at school. This year is particularly stressful because our school went on notice last year that if we didn't show adequate yearly progress this year then we go on improvement. What that means is that our school is put under a microscope and all these professional people are brought in to tell us what to do to improve our scores. It means a lot more paperwork, a lot more stress, and a lot less freedom to make my own lesson plans, which I hate. I consider myself a very creative person, but there are some days when I like to reward the class if they have gotten so many brownie points with a movie, or popcorn, or something like that. I have a feeling there will be no time for fun days if we go on improvement. Part of the problem is that our principal has also mentally checked out...I feel like he has sunk the ship and now, instead of going down with it like a good leader, he's jumping ship and leaving everyone else to deal with his wreckage. He has made it no secret that he has put in applications at other districts, even going as far as telling the students that, which I don't think is very professional. Next year may be very interesting.

I'm sorry if I seem like a downer right now. I just wanted to write about the way I've been feeling lately and get it out so I wasn't feeling so stressed about everything. My biggest fear is actually managing to get pregnant again but given it is the same time of year that I was pregnant a year ago, what if I get so stressed again that I lose the baby again? If truth were told, I'm a little scared to get pregnant again period. I know that sounds very weird and counter productive...I want a baby more than anything, yet the idea of actually being pregnant again scares the crap out of me. People say the only way to conquer a fear is to face it, so hopefully I will have that opportunity in the near future...